This is a Vacation?
by thoughtyouknewr
Summary: Sam and Dean are thrown back in time after the leviathans are set lose. Met by their father and younger selves, will they change the past? Will they be allowed to? Set after 7.02 and before 7.03
1. Chapter 1 Vacation?

**I don't own supernatural. Same goes for the rest of the story, incase I forget.**

**So I feel like this is one of my worst chapters in all my writing, so if you don't like it please stick around; it gets better soon.**

**WARNINGS: Some swearing and OOCness from John, though not in this chapter so much.**

Chapter 1 Vacation?

Sam and Dean walked into their latest motel after yet another exhausting hunt. They hadn't stopped for a nice rest for a long time, preferring to keep fighting with everything that they had. And it wasn't only monsters they were fighting either. No, they had been having more bitter arguments since Cas died then Sam ever remembered having in his life.

"Castiel?" Dean's startled voice brought Sam out of his sleep deprived daze to stare at the angel. He had watched the angel _die_ for Lord's sake! How many times was God going to bring Cas back?

"Cas!" he gasped uncertainly. "I thought….we saw you die!"

"Hello, Sam, Dean," Castiel said gravely. "I am, indeed, dead, but it has come to my father's attention that you two have not been taking proper care of yourselves or each other."

"Dude, we're fine. We're just really busy too. We'll take a break when we get time," Dean said in a stiff voice. He obviously would've been angry at Cas for bursting into "his" business if he wasn't so relieved to see the angel.

"I am sorry, Dean, but you are important players in this war, and my Father has taken a special interest in you," Castiel answered. "He has sent me because I am currently the only dead angel he trusts enough to not kill you.

"God…God has taken an interest in us?" Dean asked incredulously. "For some reason I'm having a hard time believing that."

"Angels go stay with God when they die?" Sam asked interestedly.

"It is true," Castiel insisted. "And yes, Sam, we go to our father when we die. He 'keeps an eye' on us until the world needs us again."

"Now," Castiel continued, turning back to Dean, "he said that you have two choices. One; go stay with your Uncle/ Father figure Bobby Singer, or two; we will force you to take some time off our own way."

"That sounds like a very vague threat," Sam said apprehensively.

"It is not meant as a threat," Castiel assured him. "It is meant as a promise."

That didn't really make Sam feel any better.

"Look, Cas, thanks for the offer, but we're good," Dean said. "Are you back to stay?" he asked anxiously. He had really missed Castiel.

"I thought it would come down to this. I am truly sorry. There is nothing I can do against my Father's orders. Besides, I think this is for the best." And with that Castiel reached out and touched their foreheads. Then there was black for Sam.

WWWWWWWWW

When Sam reopened his eyes he didn't know where he was. He was standing next to the Impala, and Dean was right next to him, but other then that nothing was familiar.

"Dean?" he asked alarmed as his brother swayed next to him.

"I'm fine," Dean snapped, shaking off the hand that Sam had reached out to steady him.

"You got any idea where we are?" Sam asked, scanning the area around him.

"Knowing Cas? Could be anywhere," Dean grumbled. "Stupid angel," he added under his breath with a sad tint to his voice.

"Well, let's drive to the nearest gas station and find out then," Sam said agreeably. It was hard for him to see Castiel too, but Dean obviously had it worse.

Dean threw him a look and started unlocking the passenger door that they were standing next to.

Suddenly both of them found themselves pressed face down to the hood of their car, a large hand holding their hands behind their backs.

Sam wondered how they had been caught. It had to be the exhaustion, he decided after a few seconds. Nothing else could've made it so easy for him and Dean to be pinned. Castiel and God were probably right; they did need a rest.

"I know my car might seem like a very attractive thing to own, but there is a reason I have remained owner of it all these years," a very familiar voice snarled into their ears. A familiar and _dead_ voice.

"Hey Sam, what was the name of that one book of yours that that demon burned? You have to remember it; you got so pissed that you exorcized it even though Dad and I were screaming at you to get away from it. Dean asked.

Sam let his head thunk onto the top of the car in disbelief. "Really Dean. Really. You need to know this right _now_?" Sam asked.

"Just answer the question," Dean gritted through his teeth.

"I don't know…_The Lord of the Rings; the Fellowship of the Rings_, I think. Why?" Sam asked.

"And did you…..did you ever _replace_ this book?" Dean asked, sounding indescribably nervous. He was somehow managing to stare at something through the back window shield of the car. How he did that with his upper body plastered to the top of the car was anyone's guess.

The man holding them was obviously perplexed, but chose not to interrupt for the time being. He didn't relax, though. If it was who Sam thought it was the man was gathering information about them. But it couldn't be _him_; he was dead….

"No, Dean, I didn't. Dad got pissed, remember. He told me my obsession with books was going to get me killed some time," Sam answered.

"Damn it. I'm going to kill Cas," Dean hissed. "Look," he said, now directing his speech towards the man behind them, "we kinda need you to let us up so we can explain."

"Dean…you're not actually contemplating the idea that that might be Dad, are you? Cause Dad's dead, no matter how much we both wish we could change that."

"Shut up Sam," Dean ordered.

Sam huffed.

"Give me one good reason that I should let you up," the man (John?) who was holding them said.

"We aren't going to steal your car," Dean proclaimed exasperatedly. "It's going to be mine in a few years anyway. It would basically be the same as stealing from myself, which makes no sense."

"Dean, you're just making him even more confused and more likely to kill us. You remember how overprotective he was when we were younger," Sam said exasperatedly.

"Who _are_ you?" their father snarled.

"One….two…three," Dean muttered. They stood and whirled at the time, pulling knifes from waist bands. They were faced with a real live version of their father. "

Look, I know this is going to sound completely crazy, but we are actually your sons, from the future, sent here by and angel," Dean confided.

Dean….dude, are you serious? You didn't believe in angel until you had solid proof. A.K.A when Cas pulled you out of hell. What the hell makes you think Dad will be any different? If anything he's even _more_ paranoid then you," Sam said, slapping a hand to his forehead.

"You know, if this is seriously an attempt to rob me you're doing a very bad job of it," John announced thoughtfully. Then he sighed. "I know there's a mental center near here; did your friend escape from there?" he asked Sam sympathetically.

Sam burst out laughing and Dean huffed angrily.

"You know what, you can just call Cas, Dean," Sam managed between slightly hysterical bursts of laughter.

"Cas doesn't live up my ass dude. I've told you this before," Dean exclaimed exasperatedly.

Sam cleared his throat as he gazed at the formerly empty space behind Dean.

"Are you kidding me Cas? Are you seriously up my ass or something? Because that's just creepy," Dean complained without even having to turn around.

"You don't belong here," Cas stated in his usual blunt way, ignoring Dean slur on his character. It was so like Cas that it made Sam's heart ache.

"No shit Sherlock," Dean said sarcastically. "You mind zapping us home?" Sam was pretty sure he was the only one who could hear the hidden pain in his brother's voice.

"I cannot 'zap you home'," Cas said, much to Dean's annoyance.

"Why?" Sam asked.

"I sense that it is my father's will for you to be here. I will give credit to your story so your own father will believe you, and then I must go back to Heaven."

"Dammit," Dean hissed under his breath. "I want to go home, Cas. You're the one who zapped us here in the first place; you can zap us home. Screw God and what he wants for once."

"Dean!" Sam yelled. "You don't _ever_ say 'screw God' in front of an angel. Well, frankly you shouldn't say it anyway, but especially in front of an angel."

"Oi!" John yelled, suddenly taking charge like he had done so many times with Sam and Dean's arguments when they were younger. "I want to know what's going on, and I want to know _now_."

His tone had Sam instantly straightening his posture and locking his hands behind his back; the perfect soldier. Dean on the other hand just stared at the man stubbornly. Sam nudged his older brother with his shoulder, desperately hoping Dean would get the message. He wasn't really in the mood for fighting or scolding right now, and it seemed they were going to tell their father everything. Defiance never ended well for either of the younger Winchesters.

"Leave me alone, Sam," Dean said, turning his stubborn gaze on his younger brother. "Let's start over," he then said, looking back to their father. "Name's Dean Winchester, this's my brother Sam, and _that_," (pointing at Castiel), "is Castiel, angel of the Lord, and affectionately known as Cas and Cassie."

"And I should believe this because….?" John asked, clearly not believing a word of what they were saying.

"Hey, Cas, do your creepy angel wing thing," Dean said.

Random lightening flashed, revealing Cas's wings.

"There, like, a million times more lore on angels then anything else," Sam added in. "Of course, that doesn't really prove anything because there's tones of lore on unicorns and I haven't met one of those. Yet," he added. With their lives anything was possible.

"Well, that kind of proves that," John deliberated slowly. "Or at least it proves you're supernatural. I've never heard of a creature that can make it look like they have wings when lightening flashes. Come to think of it, I've never heard of a creature that can produce lightening before…."

"That would be because lightening is an act of God," Cas said.

"Right, well then," John said, eyeing Cas warily.

"Don't worry about him; he's always weird," Dean interrupted flatly.

"Dean!" Sam yelled.

"He is having a hard time right now," Castiel observed. "Do no worry; I will not hold it against him."

"Don't even get me started on how pissed I am at you right now buddy," Dean warned. "You miraculously come back from the dead only to send us, what? It has to be over fifteen years, back in time. That's not cool man."

"Thank you Castiel," Sam interrupted. "I think you can go home now." he interceded, trying to keep Dean from saying something even more insulting and not end up offending Cas at the same time.

"Good bye," Cas deadpanned. He then vanished into thin air.

John stared blankly at the space Cas had just occupied for a few seconds, then turned to his two grown sons. "So, you have any proof you are who you say you are?" he asked. Just because angels suddenly existed didn't mean they would randomly dump future sons into his path. It made no sense to him.

"Well," Sam started, seeing Dean wasn't really in the mood for this right now, "that actually depends on how old our younger selves are. We have scars, and stuff, but that wont prove anything if our younger selves don't have them yet. "

"Wish I hadn't thrown away that necklace," Dean brooded. "It would prove it. You have to be at least eight to be reading such a freakishly bog book after all."

"Oh, thanks Dean," Sam praised, pulling at the cord around his own neck.

He pulled the amulet over his head and held it out, making sure to keep a strong hold on it.

"Where did you get that?" a younger voice asked as a fourteen year old Dean stepped around their father.

"_Here we go,"_ Sam thought.


	2. Chapter 2 You're Who?

**I don't own supernatural. **

**I need a way to tell the difference between the two Deans. The two Sams can be Sam and Sammy, but so far all I can think of for Dean is DJ; Dean Junior. I don't particularly like it, so suggestions are welcome.**

**So Dean isn't exactly his awesome big brother self right now. He practically had a break down after 7.02 when he told Bobby he wasn't Ok. I'm basing this off of that. He'll be Sammy's big brother when he needs to, don't worry.**

**I'm really bad at having both sides of the story, but I tried for this one. Tell me what you think.**

Chapter 2 You're Who?

"Yeah, Sam, where the _hell_ did you get that?" the older Dean asked in a deadly voice.

'You thought I was just going to let you throw it away?" Sam asked. "It might be worthless to you and Cas, but it means quite a lot to me, thank you."

"What is it?" John asked curiously.

Younger Dean pulled the same necklace from under his own shirt. "Sam gave it to me a long time ago. I never take it off. I think it's one of a kind," he answered softly

"Well that proves that," John sighed. "They're fine Dean. Mind telling me why an angel felt the need to send you back in time?" he asked the older version of his eldest son.

"Some crap about working too hard and needing to take a break," older Dean snorted. "Apparently God has taken a special interest in us. Maybe he finally decided to reign in his children. Hey Sam, can you picture him grounding Michel and Lucifer." The both paused for a few seconds to contemplate this idea. Their heads tipped to the side, a habit they had picked up from Cas.

"Naw; can't see it," they said together.

"I would pay money to see it though," Dean added.

"I'd pay money to never see them again," Sam said smartly, remembering the cage.

Sam spotted his younger self peering around Dean with a curious yet withdrawn look on his face. He winced as he remembered how shy he used to be. If it wasn't for the damned teacher he had in preschool he probably would've been just as loud and obnoxious as other children, but _noooooo_ he had to go through traumatizing experiences because the teacher decided he didn't like Sam.

"Who are you?" Dean asked.

"To be blunt, we're you. Except older," Dean said flatly.

His younger counterpart looked completely disbelieving.

"It's true," his father reassured him. "An angel dropped them back in time."

"Right, and I suppose you're also going to tell me that I try a normal life style and Sam prays every night before he goes to sleep," younger Dean said sarcastically.

"Dean, please tell me you never had any ability with mind reading or seeing into the future," Sam said. He really didn't think he could deal with a physic Dean.

"Hell no. you got all the freaky mojo stuff," older Dean said loudly.

"Can this wait till later?" John asked. "We just finished a long drive and we're pretty tired. We should try all this again after a good nights sleep."

Sleep…it sounded like paradise to Sam. When was the last time he and Dean had actually crashed somewhere and gotten a full nights sleep? Two weeks, maybe three? Sam didn't remember, but it was too long.

"Great idea. Is the nearest motel within walking distance?" Sam asked. His vision was practically blurring with exhaustion, and he hoped it wouldn't be too far away.

His father gave him an odd look. "You don't honestly think I would just leave you here without a car, do you?" he asked skeptically.

Sam was confused. In his teenage years John had never had any problems leaving him and Dean alone to deal with the consequences of whatever trouble they had gotten themselves in,

"In that case, I call shotgun," Dean claimed flippantly.

"Whatever," Sam responded, rolling his eyes. "Seriously though, Dean, what are we five?"

"Well, if I'm five that makes you around one. Sounds about right with the amount of whining you do," Dean replied.

"So not in the mood Dean," Sam shot back wearily. He really didn't think he had enough energy to argue with his brother.

"I'm sorry, do you need your beauty sleep princess? I forgot you missed it last night," Dean snarked.

Sam rolled his eyes and yanked open the door to the backseat. He flopped into the seat, completely losing the energy to keep himself on his feet. Everyone else had already loaded into the car, and they all sat patiently while Dean swung himself into the front seat.

"How far of a drive so we have?" he asked.

Sam lost track of the conversation after that. He was so tired it didn't really matter bow long it took to get there; he was going to fall asleep on the way. He pulled his knees up and curled into an uncomfortable ball around his duffle bag.

Within seconds his eyes drifted shut, and he gave into the call of sleep.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

Dean looked into the backseat to see Sam already asleep and curled into a surprisingly tiny ball..

He loved his little brother, really, he did, but sometimes Sam was the most irritating person in the world. He would freely admit that he was stressed out about the whole Cas is dead and we have to save the world for the _third _freaking time in as many years situation, but a good part of what was bothering him was Sam's reactions to hell. Not that he blamed Sam, but still…

He couldn't stand to listen to Sam when his baby brother needed to talk because it brought up all his own hell memories. Sam talked about things; Dean buried them deep enough that they would never see the light of day again. He had enough of a hard time burring Hell as it was.

It was also incredibly stressful for him to wake up to Sam screaming every time they did stop somewhere to sleep (not that he didn't have his own fair share of nightmares).

Not to mention having to listen Sam hallucinating and watch his baby brother convulsing on the ground. It was just too much to deal with along with everything else they were trying to handle.

"Is he alright?" Dean looked back up front as he heard his father speak. "He looks like he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep in a week."

"Are you kidding me? I don't even remember the last time we stopped at a motel. There's just so much to do.'

"We've got new monsters that heaven and hell don't have any idea how to deal with. They're called leviathans, and apparently God created them and then locked them in the deepest pits of purgatory. Our friend Cas (the one who sent us here) accidentally set them free. We don't even know what how to kill them. They don't react to salt, silver, holy water, angel swards; nothing."

"Not to mention what we just finished dealing with." Dean rubbed his eyes wearily. "They called her mother of all, and apparently she was the literal mother of all monsters. Also known as Eve," Dean replied.

"Eve?" his younger self inquired incredulously.

"My reaction exactly," Dean replied. "Such a disgusting monster doesn't deserve such a sexy name. Now I can never date a women named Eve without a picture of her popping up. Mind you she was rather hot though. Well, her meatsuit was."

"Right….Back to Sam and you," his father said. "When've you been sleeping if you haven't been stopping for the night?"

"We take turns driving and sleeping mostly. Sometimes we stop at Bobby's, but he's mostly out working too," Dean said.

"That's gotta stop, y'know?" John reasoned. "You can't just keep pushing. Sooner or later one of you's gonna collapse. Just look at your little brother. He's exhausted Dean."

"We'll keep going as long as is needed," Dean determined firmly. "We've gone longer doing harder things without sleep. Angels and Demons don't generally need sleep, so you learn to do without."

"You obviously need sleep or your angel friend (Castiel, was it?) wouldn't have dropped you here," his father pointed out.

Dean snorted. "Cas is just getting involved in our business. He's actually dead. He had a full scale civil war on his hands in Heaven, and he's a leader on one side. His side won, but he was killed soon after.…." Dean trailed off.

"We're here," was John's only reply. "You stay here a few seconds while I go get you a room."

Dean gave him an odd look, but didn't argue.

There was an awkward silence in the car while John went up to the front desk. Dean knew his younger counter part didn't trust him yet, and by extent that meant Sammy didn't trust him yet. His own Sam was sleeping, so no hope of breaking the silence by talking to him.

"Ok, everyone out," John ordered, coming back with a key.

"What's out cover?" Dean asked as he stepped out of the car.

"You're my nephews. It wouldn't really make sense for me to have two thirty some sons, a teenager, and a ten year old."

"Hey, I'm not complaining. Damn it Sam, wake up," Dean added as he reached into the backseat to shake Sam.

His baby brother just mumbled something and rolled over, pressing himself more firmly into the door handle. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Go on; I've got the sasquatch," he shot over his shoulder at his father. "What out room number?"

"You're next to us in twenty two. We're twenty one," John answered. "We'll meet here at twelve for brunch. I don't think Sam's gonna be up for breakfast. Try to sleep in, will you?"

"Sure," Dean assured distractedly, knowing full well that he wouldn't sleep past ten at the latest. That was if he escaped nightmares.

"See you in the morning," John said as he herded the younger versions of his sons into his room.

Dean could see that his younger self was ready to question his father as soon as they were alone. Then he realized he hadn't heard a word out of younger Sam and wondered why. From what he remembered Sam was a bit of a chatter box at that age. Oh well; it wasn't his problem.

"Get your freakishly huge ass out of the car Sam; I can't carry you in anymore," he growled at his younger brother.

Seeing that shaking Sam and talking to him was having no effect Dean realized exactly how tired Sam must be. Sam had been on edge ever since he had come back from hell. Not that Dean could blame him for that. He himself had been overly emotional when he got back from hell, so he was actually somewhat relieved that Sam only came back paranoid and slightly insane

Dean walked around to Sam's door and knocked on the window. Sam was leaning against the thing after all; if that didn't wake him nothing would.

It didn't wake him.

"Dammit," he hissed under his breath. Deciding there was nothing else for it, he opened the door. Sam had forgotten to buckle himself in (yet another thing that told Dean how tired his safety freak of a brother was) and fell straight onto the hard concrete when Dean opened his door.

"Ow!" Sam yelled, jumping up. He wasn't exactly in the best mood after coming awake to the sensation of falling. Quite honestly he was lucky not to break something from the fall.

"What the hell was that for Dean!" he yelled at his brother.

"You wouldn't wake up and I can't haul you're giant ass into the room like I used to Sam," Dean replied, rolling his eyes. Sam was such a drama queen.

"Whatever," Sam said, whipping a hand across his face. "What room are we in?"

"Twenty two," Dean disclosed. "Dad's in twenty one."

"'K," Sam muttered making his way tiredly towards the room.

As soon as they got to the room Sam crashed. He didn't even bother taking a shower (which to be honest they were both in desperate need of after their last hunt) before he fell onto the bed. He was asleep before his head even touched the pillow.

Dean rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time that night. He walked over to Sam and removed his shoes before pulling a blanket over his baby brother. Well he couldn't just leave Sam like that, could he?

After that he crashed himself, hoping with his last conscious thought, that neither of them would have nightmares.

**I have a challenge! I've been looking around, and I noticed that there are almost no stories where Sam and Dean either go back in time, or go to an alternates universe. This makes absolutely no sense to me, because it's perfectly reasonable for them to do this.**

_**So: Write a story where Sam and/or Dean go back in time or to an alternate universe, or both. The can go back a few seasons and try to change something, go to an alternate and get stuck there for their whole lives, go back and to an alternate and get home to find everything changed; anything.**_

**This is my first ever challenge, so good luck! I would appreciate it if you told me you were taking up the challenge so I could read it. I'll always read the story, no matter what.**


	3. Chapter 3 Solid Proof

**I don't own supernatural. LONGEST CHAPTER I'VE EVER WRITTEN! It's 4'500 words. We get our explanation for silent Sammy in this chapter, and John and the Deans don't like it.**

Chapter 3 Solid Proof

Sam woke the next morning when it was still dark out. He was panting, struggling to hold back tears. Great, another nightmare. He wasn't going to get anymore sleep tonight.

He didn't want to wake Dean because (though normally Dean seemed to have some sort of sixth sense when something was wrong with Sam) his big brother was still sleeping.

So he spent the time from 4:30 in the morning until 8:30 just lying in bed, trying to fight back horrible images from hell.

But it was so hard. It was like Michel and Lucifer were standing next to him, whispering into his ears, their voices promises of the agony to come.

Sam shuddered.

At 8:30 he dragged his still exhausted body out of bed and into the bathroom. By the time Dean woke up at 9:30 Sam was dressed and ready for the day.

By the time Dean was ready to go at 10:00 Sam was surfing the web for possible cases. It was so odd to have to search for something now. He was so used to hunting the same thing and concentrating only on that thing.

"Anything worth checking out?" Dean asked as he left the bathroom.

"Uh, yeah. It seems like there are so few cases though. I actually had to look to find something this time," Sam answered.

"We meet Dad at twelve for some kind of odd mixture of breakfast and lunch; we can work till then," Dean informed him.

"How're we going to get to where ever this case is Dean? We don't have a car anymore, and I highly doubt Dad is going to drive our asses where we want to go. We could always just hunt with him too."

"We'll find a way Sam; we always do," Dean assured him.

So Sam spent the next few hours on research. He had found a case in Topeka Kansas. He thought it was a spirit, so he was researching people who the spirit could be.

He was so caught up in his work that he didn't even notice twelve o'clock rolling around.

"Sam, we going with Dad for food or what? Actually, you know what? You can stay if you want, but I'm starving," Dean said, breaking Sam's concentration.

"No, I'm coming," Sam replied. He wasn't going because he wanted to eat though. Honestly he was afraid he would throw up if he did. No, he was going to the restaurant because he knew Dean and their father would be making plans while they ate, and he wanted to be included in that discussion. Even _if_ no one would be listening to him. That was what he remembered from his teenage years, and it was what he expected.

He quickly shut the computer down, wishing he could have his laptop. It didn't work in this time so that was out of the question.

The door was already closing behind Dean when the stupidly slow computer _finally_ finished closing down.

"Wait up Dean!" he yelled after his brother as he sped out the door.

"I honestly expected to have to wake you boys up," his father was saying as Sam ran up.

Have to wake them up? After he told them to be there at a certain time? Was the man crazy? Even Sam wouldn't dare disobey John just for a little extra sleep. His father would probably make sure it was the last time he slept for awhile just to teach him a lesson. Not that Sam blamed him for that.

"We were up early," he answered John.

"But you were so tired last night," John objected, looking startled. "I actually wouldn't have blamed you if you just slept through the whole day. "

"You said to be here at twelve," Sam said uncomprehendingly; if John said something it was to be taken as God's law if you were a Winchester.

"Doesn't mean I expected you to be here. Not like I would've killed you for being late, especially not with how tired you were last night," his father answered.

Sam felt like saying yeah right, but that didn't seem like the type of thing his father would like to hear, so he kept quiet.

"Where're we having breakfast?" Dean asked as he swung himself into the car again. Sam climbed into the backseat without complaint, even though it was extremely uncomfortable for him.

He really didn't want to start any arguments. He was hardly less tired then he had been the night before; he had to at least have some coffee before he went at it with anyone.

"There's a dinner a few blocks from here," their father answered Dean. "I thought we would go there."

"Sounds great," Sam and Dean replied together. Sammy and younger Dean stared at them. Sam knew neither of the two younger ones trusted him and Dean. Hell, his younger self wasn't even comfortable enough to talk in front of them. Granted, the kid only talked in front of family, but still.

They entered the dinner and ordered their beverages (coffee for their father Sam, and both Deans, and orange juice for Sammy) without problems. While they waited for the waitress to show up with their drinks the talk turned to what Sam and older Dean were going to do.

"Where are you headed?" Dean asked. "What's the latest job?"

"We don't have one right now actually," John said. "We were on our way to Bobby's for a rest and to see if he had anything for us."

"Bu there has to be some type of job," Sam objected, more in surprise then anything else. There was always a job; no matter what. They never just went somewhere to rest. A job had to be connected somehow.

"Nope," John said, "just some rest. We're almost there actually, since I doubt you know where we are."

"Great, you know if he has any extra cars right now? Sam found a job in Topeka," Dean said.

The waitress was back then, and there was no time for an answer. "Are you ready to order?" she asked.

"You ready boys?" John asked.

Everyone nodded.

Both Deans and John got the meat lovers breakfast, which consisted of sausage, bacon, corn beef hash, and (randomly) two pancakes. Sammy got two eggs, some bacon, and a side of toast. Then all that was left was Sam.

"Oh, I'm good with just coffee," he said, smiling at the waitress.

"No he's not," John interrupted. "He'll have the California fruit platter."

Sam stared at his father. He couldn't even remember the last time his father had even _listened_ to what he had ordered, let alone _cared_ about it.

"Alright then," the waitress said unsurely. "I'll take these to the kitchen . You're food will be here soon."

"Thank you," John and Sam said together. John said it because it was second nature for him. Sam, however, said it because he was used to being the only one who would bother to thank anyone out of their entire family. He was stunned to hear a simple thank you from his father, and returned to his all consuming task of staring at the man.

"You are _not_ going hunting," John said, returning his attention to his eldest son now that the waitress was gone. "The angel said he put you here to rest. And besides, do you really think I would allow you boys out hunting with how exhausted you seem?"

"Yes," Sam and Dean said together without even the slightest pause.

"Well then," John said, looking mildly surprised, "you thought wrong. We are going to Bobby's, and you two are going to rest up until this angel comes to take you home."

"Yes sir," Sam said instantly, recognizing his father 's no nonsense tone.

"No," Dean said flatly. Sam gaped at his big brother. Had Dean gone insane? Sam thought _he_ was the one who went crazy.

"Dean!" he breathed, hoping to perform damage control before everything went pear-shaped.

Their father's whole attention was on Dean in an instant. "Dean, listen to me. I know you're used to being in charge. Hell, I heard you talking yesterday and I know I'm dead in your time. However, in this time I am alive, and I am in charge. End of story," John said.

Dean glared at the man for a few minutes, then turned his face away giving no real answers.

"Right, now that that's settled," (it wasn't, but for now that would remain unchallenged), "what do you guys want to do with this break?"

"Can we go fishing again?" Sammy asked. Young Dean's face lit up at the idea.

"Yeah! Maybe we can even rope Uncle Caleb and Uncle Josh into coming with us!" he said.

"That's a good idea. I have a feeling we're going to have more than enough time to do whatever we want. What about you boys?" John asked, turning his attention to the older version of his ten and fourteen year olds.

"I want to hunt," Dean answered flatly.

"Dude," Sam said, smacking Dean lightly on the shoulder. "He already said no; leave it. I don't really care what we do. Can't remember the last time I took a pleasure break from hunting," he answered his father.

"You just had a long break," Dean protested.

"No," Sam said, his eyes darkening, "_you _just had a break. _I _,on the other hand, just literally went through hell and came up worse for the wear." He scowled.

"Whatever," Dean muttered.

Then the food came, and everyone was consumed with the task of filling their stomachs. Everyone, that is, except Sam. He was sill feeling rather nauseous and thought it best not to tempt his stomach.

"Eat, Sam," their father said without even looking up. Sam gaped at the man. "What?" John asked, looking up. "I'm still your father, no matter how old you get."

"Yes sir," Sam said, ducking his head towards the plate. He didn't dare challenge his father's orders, so he picked up a piece of watermelon and started eating.

Lunch was finished rather quickly. Sam even managed to force down around half the fruit on his plate before his stomach warned him to stop or risk getting sick. It wasn't enough to exactly satisfy his father, but John decided not to push it. The boy _was _an adult after all.

Once through with their food they quickly drove back to the motel to check out and grab their stuff. Normally they would've done it before they went to eat, but John hadn't been expecting Sam and older Dean to be able to travel through their exhaustion.

They all piled back into the car (Sam once again regulated to the backseat) and then they were off.

Younger Dean was sitting in between the two Sams, but the older one was determined to talk to his younger self. In the silent car it would be hard without bringing attention to the fact that Sammy hadn't said a word the whole day, but Sam knew of a way he could manage it.

He reached around Dean to tap Sammy's shoulder, and conversation was begun with a series of quick hand movements.

"_You know you don't have to play shy around us. We __are__you and Dean after all. Just a little older," _Sam spoke using sign language. Younger Dean watched his flying hands like he was insane, but Sammy's face lit up.

After his first day of preschool Sam had refused to talk to anyone out side of his immediate family for a very long time. As a result, he had learned sign language because he needed a way to communicate with the outside world. It worked quite well, though he honestly didn't know why no one had ever mentioned his disinclination to speak to his father or brother.

"_You know sign language!"_ Sammy asked excitedly, his gestures nearly impossible to understand through his excitement.

"_We've told you; I'm you. I can do everything you can," _Sam answered. The conversation continued for several minutes, Dean simply staring at both of them like they had gone mad, before John's voice startled them out of their conversation.

"You ok Sammy? You haven't said anything all day, and that's not like you," their father said while glancing back at them through the review mirror.

"Oh don't worry about that," Sam said, completely unconcerned, "he won't talk in front of us for awhile. Not until he's absolutely positive that we really are him and Dean."

"Why the hell would he do that?" Dean asked. "Kid's a freaking chatter box from what I remember."

"Be nice Dean," Sam reprimanded before anyone else had a chance to say anything.

"Why won't he talk, Sam?" John asked.

"I had a traumatizing preschool teacher," Sam deadpanned. "I never told you about that?" he asked when even his Dean turned to look at him weird.

"No, so spill. What'd he do, cuddle you till you felt like you were gonna burst?" Dean replied.

"I wish," Sam answered. "It was my first preschool. I was four years old and had never encountered anything that could harm me in my entire life. I was so excited to finally get to go to school like Dean did," Sam half smiled at the memory.

"That's 'cause you're a geek," Dean said, rolling his eyes.

"Does it really matter why?" Sam asked exasperatedly.

John smiled a little, his eyes still fixed on the road. At least his sons' argument now sounded familiar.

"Just wanted to make sure everyone knew," Dean replied.

Sam rolled his eyes, but decided to continue his story. "I had made it about half way through the day, and it was naptime. I wasn't thrilled, of course, and I was whispering with the kid next to me. I remember it so clearly. We were talking about building a house of bricks when we were finally allowed to get up. Then we just trailed of into saying random stuff to make each other laugh. I don't know exactly why the teacher targeted me. I learned later that he always had a 'favorite' student that he picked on."

Younger Dean's intake of breath was quick and barely noticeable. He stayed quite like everyone else, but his and John's eyes filled with murder. Sam's Dean simply watched him intently as he told his story, no hint of any emotion showing.

"My friend and I were giggling when he suddenly went quiet and pretended to be asleep. I followed his example because my back was to the teacher. Next thing I knew the guy (his name was Mr. Dolor) was picking me up. That in itself wouldn't have scared me, but he pulled me back into his office with him. Dad and Dean always told me not to let myself be left alone with anyone, so that set off warning bells. I couldn't do much though. I was a four year old…."

Sam's eyes had taken a distant look.

"At first everything went fine. He gave me the lecture I was expecting, but right before he let me go back to the other kids he punched me. Really actually _punched_ me too, not just some soft little smack. He told me to expect the same things next time I talked."

John nearly crashed the car at that. Someone had _punched_ his four year old son? They had better hope they had already died. Younger Dean's hands were balling into fists and Sam's Dean was working hard to control his anger, but both Sams were oblivious to this.

"I was going to tell Dad, but he told me he was sorry any father had to deal with such a horrible child as I was. Told me Dad would appreciate what he was doing. Told me it was a normal thing to happen at school. It was the first time I had ever interacted with anyone other then Dad, Dean, Bobby, and Pastor Jim. For all I knew it was normal. And if I told Dad he might know how bad I was and not want to keep me."

"Sam!" John breathed, horrified.

"It was what he told me. I was four and terrified. I believed him. If nothing else I thought I was better to be safe then sorry," Sam answered, eyes still distant. "I knew Dean didn't come home from school with bruises, so I thought he must be a good boy. In my four year old head it all made sense. Why so many children seemed to hate school, why Dean hated school so much, why Dad didn't like being called to the office. Everything. I knew Dad would never hurt me or Dean, and didn't want anyone else to hurt us either."

John and both Deans exchanged looks full of horror mixed with a little relief that Sam knew his father would never hurt him.

"I went back to the other kids like nothing had happened. I thought Mr. Dolor did the same to all the other children, and I didn't want to get anyone else into trouble. I was quiet for the rest of naptime. I was determined not to mess up again. In my mind Daddy would be so disappointed."

John noticed the switch form Dad to Daddy and figured Sam was getting even deeper into his story.

"I failed , of course. I had thought he only meant not to talk during nap time. He had meant not to talk _at all_. Ever. He hit me again when I tried to restart my conversation with my friend."

"I decided that I couldn't tell Dean about the teacher. He would know exactly how awful I was if I told him. He was a good boy; he didn't come home with bruises, so he had to be. I had a hell of a time hiding the bruises from him. It took me forever to get ready for school, but on the plus side I learned to dress myself."

Younger Dean actually started to cry, but no one else noticed.

"The whole time we were there Mr. Dolor continued on with the same pattern. Eventually he just hit me every time I opened my mouth. It took everything I had to act normal when I was at home. To not cringe every time someone reached towards me. To keep talking like I had before. No one noticed though. Well, Dean did I guess, since he thought I was having a hard time getting along with the other kids. He thought they were being mean to me because I was so small."

Sam smirked. He knew that sounded odd coming from his 6 foot 4 self.

"We left the town, and everything went back to normal. Everything, that is, except me. I didn't talk in front of anyone not in my family until I turned ten. Even then it was only when I absolutely had to. I had learned by then that it wasn't normal for teachers to hit their students, so I figured it wouldn't happen again. Still, I was never comfortable talking in front of others."

"I learned sign language when I was five and a half. I don't know why no one ever mentioned the fact that I didn't talk to Dad or Dean. I guess all the teachers thought I was mute. Even when I went to Stanford I wouldn't talk much. That's why Jess was such a god send. She knew sign language, was brilliant, and had gotten there earlier so she would know her way around campus."

The vacant look in both Sams' eyes faded slowly.

"And may I ask exactly why I never learned about this?" Sam's Dean asked with quiet furry.

"Well at first when I was at that school I thought it was normal," Sam reiterated. "Once we moved on I and I learned that what Mr. Dolor did to me wasn't normal I figured I was enough of a freak what with always being the new kid. I didn't want to be a freak at home too. Then…. You remember that despair demon that nearly killed me when I was fifteen?"

"Yeah," Dean replied, completely nonchalant like nearly dying was an every day event. Of course, that might have been because it was for them. The rest of the family watched on, aghast. Dean had twisted in his seat so he was facing Sam sometime during Sam's story. His chin was resting on the back of the front seat as they talked.

"Well, it mentioned that its brother had done a good job on me. Took all my self confidence, made me second guess myself, made sure I had no sense of self worth, and carry the blame so much that it was easy to use that to crack me. I couldn't figure out what it meant for the longest time. Finally I was looking back as far as I could remember, and I remembered that Mr. Dolor sometimes had funny eyes."

Everyone else (including Sammy) sucked in their breath at that.

"I looked back through the records and realized there were a lot more incidents like mine in that preschool. I should've known; I knew Latin even when I was four."

"What's that got to do with price of tea in china?" John asked.

"Dolor means pain," both Sams answered together.

Both Deans and John blinked. "That wasn't creepy at all," younger Dean said. Sam and Sammy shrugged.

"So what happened then?" younger Dean asked. He seemed very into this story. Sam just hoped he didn't do something rash and get himself killed. Dean didn't take things harming his baby brother lightly.

"I brought the case to Dad's attention, but made sure he never associated the school with my first school. Some of the other kids had really bad disabilities from that school and I didn't want him to freak out."

"Bad, like, worse then you not talking and having no self confidence?" John asked darkly.

"Oh I think I got off relatively easily," Sam answered pleasantly. "Most of Mr. Dolor's favorites ended up committing suicide sometime in their mid to upper teens."

"What?" everyone else yelled.

"Yeah. Turns out he and his brother were working in pairs. Mr. Dolor would get them started when they were younger, and then the despair demon would drive them to suicide when they got older. So I got Dad to hunt it. End of story."

"Oh, no it isn't," Sam's Dean cut in. "Isn't that demon the one that burned your book?"

"Oh yeah!" Sam laughed happily. "I forgot about that."

"What happened?" younger Dean asked.

"Mr. Dolor stole my book and burned it. I got pissed and exorcized him," Sam recounted, as though he did this all the time. That might have been because he actually did do it all the time, but John, Sammy, and younger Dean didn't know that.

"But you were, what, sixteen! Were you insane!" John asked with fear and anger in his voice.

"Actually I was fifteen," Sam cringed. "And I wasn't insane; he was already stuck in the devil's trap. I knew I was safe. You guys didn't seem to think the same way though."

"Why, what did they do?" Sammy asked.

"I was grounded for quite awhile. Not that it mattered since I didn't have any friends anyway, but still…..And Dad was pretty pissed." Both Deans, Sam, and Sammy all winced; you didn't want to get John Winchester mad at you, even if you _were_ his son. Most of the time it ended with a very sorry little boy in the corner with a sore backside.

"After that I felt stupid; I should've recognized the man as a demon way back when. Instead I let him get to me and literally scar me for life," Sam finished his story with a yawn; he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was take a nap. His eyes were already starting to drift closed as he leaned back against the seat and curled into a ball again.

John looked back, intending to start a discussion on exactly how Sam really didn't need to doubt himself, and how he should've told John himself and Dean all this years ago. His face softened when he saw his son's eyes drifting closed. Sam looked so young like that. He was practically rubbing his eyes to try and keep them open.

"Go to sleep, Sam. We'll wake you up when we get to Bobby's. After that we can have a talk," he told his baby boy. It really didn't matter that Sam was now old enough to be a father himself; he would always be John and Dean's baby boy. Though looking at the young man next to him in the front seat he thought Dean might need to be reminded of this fact.

A tired, "K" was all Sam managed to get out before his eyes drifted completely closed, and he was once again enveloped by sleep.

"Well, I guess that's definite proof that you are who you say you are," Sammy said. "I was never planning to tell anyone that. Ever."

"Quite frankly I was surprised that you didn't do anymore tests," Dean answered confusedly.

"Who says we didn't?" younger Dean asked.

"Well, DJ, I didn't have anyone throwing holy water all over me or nicking me with a silver knife now, did I?" Dean answered.

"DJ?" John asked in an amused voice.

"Dean Jonathon; it's my middle name you know," Dean returned with satisfaction. "It would be too confusing for us to be just saying Dean all the time and talking to two different people. The younger Sam can be Sammy, but I never had any nicknames that were for use in public."

"Right, well, we tested you in an obscure way," Sammy replied.

"What does that even _mean_?" Dean questioned. He was too tired to figure out Sammy's geek talk right now.

"We blessed the water source for the entire hotel, threw some silver in it, and I put a salt line on the top of your door before you went in," John clarified.

"Nice," Dean said appreciatively.

"It was almost all Sammy's ideas," DJ claimed proudly. Sammy went bright red.

Dean knew Sam had a lot of amazing ideas when it came to hunting. He knew how to make what they were doing easier. In his timeline their father had never allowed him to do this. He thought Sam was trying to prove he was a better hunter then John himself or some crap like that.

Dean could only hope it would be different now. Come to think of it, he really hoped they could change the timeline completely. Their lives sucked and they really deserved to change them if they got the chance.

With that thought Dean joined back in to the conversation going on around him. When they got to Bobby's he would talk to Sam about sneaking out to go hunting; until then he was quite content to joke around with his family.

**John was a military man who became a father in the 80's; he had to have spanked his kids _sometime_ during their lives. It was pretty much a fact of life back then as far as I can gather. I'm not planning on including anything more then mentions of past things that happened though, so no worries if you don't like it.**

**I think younger Dean might be a little OOC, but I'm not sure. I _know_ John's OOC, but he's supposed to be. I have a reason for that later.**


	4. Chapter 4 Truth of the Matter

**I don't own supernatural **

**I haven't updated in _forever_, but I was having a little trouble with writers block. **

Chapter 4 Truth of the Matter

Sam was caught in the grips of another horrific nightmare. He knew it was a nightmare because it couldn't possibly be real; not with the way Lucifer was bending his body. If it were real he would've already been dead.

Or maybe it _was_ real and he was back in the cage? Maybe he had dreamed that he had gotten out and was facing the leviathans with Dean?

No, he was back in time right now, wasn't he? That wasn't possible. Sure, he had gone back for a little while and met his younger parents, but that had drained Castiel like no tomorrow. It wasn't possible for them to stay back in time long enough for a vacation.

So that meant he had dreamed up the whole thing; he was actually dead and in the cage with Lucifer and Michel.

The pain was overwhelming. He honestly didn't know how long he had till he cracked and started screaming. But wait, wasn't he screaming already?

He couldn't scream; if he did Michel and Lucifer would be sure to do this again. They really liked hearing him scream.

He tried to curl into himself and present a smaller target, but it was impossible with what Lucifer was doing. Michel was laughing now. The agony was building. Sam didn't know how much longer he would be able to hold out.

_**Supernatural **_

Every noise in the car ceased immediately as a small whimper was heard from the backseat.

"Dammit, not now," Dean muttered.

"What?" John asked, worriedly watching his baby try to make his tall frame even smaller then the tiny ball he was currently in.

"Pull over to the lane closest to the edge. If Sam says to stop then stop, no matter where we are," was all Dean would say.

"What's wrong with him?" DJ asked with much concern. This tall man was, after all, only a bigger version of the baby brother he idolized.

"Nightmare," Dean answered grimly. He knew how bad his little brother's dreams could get.

"That's not what Sam does when he's having a nightmare," DJ objected. "He rolls around and yells a lot. Curling into a ball and whimpering is saved for when he's awake."

"Times change, and so do people. Rules change too. There are rules even to having a nightmare now," Dean answered sadly.

"What rules?" John asked worriedly.

"Curl into a ball; smaller you are the less room they have to target. Don't make any noise; if they know it hurts they'll do it over again because they like to hear you scream," Dean whispered with a haunted look.

"You've been tortured," John realized with a horrified look as he put the clues together. "Oh God, I think I'm going to throw up."

"Great, our lives turn to crap as we get older," DJ groaned.

"Our lives were always crap. Ever since I was sixteen," Dean replied distractedly. Sam was starting to wake.

"Why did you lives turn to cr-" John was interrupted by Sam shooting upright in his seat. John watched in alarm as his baby hit his head on the roof of the car, but Sam didn't even seem to notice.

"Dean, Dean stop the car; _now_," was all Sam had time to gasp out. The car was already pulling over before he even finished his sentence. John hadn't been expecting his son to mistake him for Dean, but figured Sam was still disorientated from being asleep.

Sam was opening the door and shooting out of the car before they were even fully stopped. He hit the ground on his hands and knees and retched violently.

"Sammy!" DJ cried.

Sammy simply sat and watched curiously as his father and brother launched themselves out of the car and bolted to his older self's side. He honestly wasn't that worried; it was only him after all.

Dean sighed heavily as he climbed slowly out of the car. He walked to the Sam and put a comforting hand on the back of his baby brother's neck as his Sammy kept throwing up.

DJ and John rushed around getting things from the trunk. If Dean had to guess he would've said they were probably getting tylenol, a couple blankets, and some water. It was what they had always done when Sam was younger.

By the time Sam had finished his younger self had scooted to the edge of the backseat (he was so short his legs didn't even touch the ground), and DJ and John were standing near him.

"You good now?" Dean asked as Sam finally lifted his head.

Sam nodded tiredly. It took a lot out of him to constantly be throwing up, but it seemed like he threw up everything he ate. Some of it was from memories of hell, some of it was from delusions or seizures, and some of it was because he was almost constantly hurt.

Take, for example the gash that he had gotten in the last hunt that seriously needed to be stitched up before he got an infection from it. He thought Dean had a bone that needed to be set or something, but wasn't sure.

"So, I take it that was breakfast?" Dean inquired.

"Yeah," Sam answered wearily.

"Well at least you kept lunch and dinner down yesterday," Dean encouraged while shrugging.

"We didn't even _eat_ lunch or dinner yesterday, Dean," Sam reminded his big brother.

"Oh…" Dean blanked.

"You should've told me you were sick Sammy," John chided softly. "I wouldn't have made you eat if I knew it would make you sick."

"Not sick," Sam muttered, trying to keep his eyes open.

"I'm sure," was DJ softly snorted statement.

"He's not sick," Dean added.

"He just threw up," Sammy declared, as though that settled everything. In any sane person's mind it would've settled things, but since when were Winchester sane?

"We did mention the whole 'hell' thing, did we not?" Dean questioned. "We weren't kidding or over exaggerating. Hell does not leave you with pleasant memories. Sam was lucky to get off this well with how long he was down there. Not to mention who he had with him, because that was just….." Dean trailed off shuddering.

"Don't remind me," Sam moaned.

John and DJ stood stunned.

"Hell?" John finally asked, his voice cracking.

"Yep," Dean replied cheerily, as though he was not talking about eternal torture after death.

"_Hell_?" John confirmed again.

"Kind of a rite of passage, isn't it Dean?" Sam mused with a tight smile. "Whole family except for Mom's been there one time or another. They never seem to be able to hold us though."

"That's 'cause we're awesome," Dean said smugly. He took the water bottle from DJ's limp hands. "Here," he grinned, presenting it to Sam.

"Thanks," Sam croaked as he took it.

"Right," John decided, seeming to come out of his shock. "We are going to Bobby's, and then we are going to be having a very long talk."

"Yes sir," Sam complied, levering himself to his feet.

Dean just nodded and got back into the front seat. DJ pushed Sam into the car before getting in himself. Sam guessed now that the younger Dean knew Sam was actually his little brother his younger older brother would be keeping a much closer eye on him. And _damn_ but it was confusing to think that.

Sure enough, Sam was barely seated when the younger boy was covering him with a blanket and handing him some tylenol.

"I'm good Dean, I really don't need a blanket and I don't have a headache," Sam assured amusedly.

"Take them," Dean demanded, leveling Sam with his 'I'm the older brother and you will do as I say' glare. It had been a long time since Sam saw that glare, and he was startled into complying at once.

Sammy watched on with amusement as his older self was bullied into taking care of himself by his big brother. It was quite funny to see such a big person so easily cowed by a teenager.

The rest of the drive was somewhat awkward, because DJ and John couldn't seem to keep their eyes off of Sam. Dean in the front seat was completely zoning out and humming metallic, so he was no help. Sam fidgeted uncomfortably the whole time, and Sammy just found the whole situation extremely funny.

Here they were, riding in a car with time traveling versions of himself and his older brother, and yet they were all worrying over either a slight stomach bug or a little bit of trauma that could be prevented if they just knew how to circumvent it. He knew as soon as this thought occurred to his brother and father they would demand to know what had happened.

Until then he wouldn't tell them. He would just allow them to continue driving along, and hope to Heaven they didn't cause a car crash. It was a good thing there were only ten more minutes to Bobby's house.

_**Supernatural**_

Once they got to Bobby's house Dean was the first person out of the car.

"Ah; home sweet home," he said appreciatively as he eyed Bobby's house. "Hey Sam, how much do you think I can scare him before he tries to shoot me?"

"I think he would shoot you on sight, so don't try anything," Sam answered with an eye roll.

"That you John?" Bobby's voice came floating out of the house.

"Yeah," their father called back. "Picked up a few strays along the way though."

"God dammit John! Last time you picked up a stray it took us three weeks to find its' parents!" Bobby yelled back as his footsteps moved quickly towards them.

"We are _not_ strays!" Dean exclaimed indignantly.

"I already found the parents, Bobby," John chuckled as Bobby came barreling through the door.

"I suppose these are them," Bobby speculated, looking Dean up and down before moving his scrutiny to Sam. "They need to eat and sleep more," he grunted. "Who are you kid?"

"For your information I am not a kid," Dean complained with some scorn. "In fact I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for the fact that my car didn't get magically transported through time with me. Name's Dean, Dean Winchester."

"Yeah, and I'm Bond, James Bond," Sam snorted.

"Oh shut up," Dean snapped.

"John?" Bobby queried uncertainly.

"We already thoroughly checked them. Holy water, salt, silver, the works," John reported. "They were transported through time by an angel (I didn't even know they existed until yesterday) and I was told they were supposed to be taking a vacation. I figure if an _angel_ is concerned about the amount of sleep they're getting we should be taking a little bit of a break."

"No shit Sherlock," Bobby quipped on instinct. "Well, if it really is you boys then come on in."

"Thank Bobby," Sam said with a smile for the older man as Dean walked into the house like he owned it.

"He's sure at home here," Bobby remarked as he watched Dean rummaging in his fridge.

"He and I kind of moved in with you," Sam informed softly. "When we're not hunting (which admittedly is kind of rare) we're here. It's home base."

Bobby looked surprised, but pleased.

They were interrupted by Dean walking back out to the car, now holding a sandwich in one hand. They watched as Dean popped the trunk and grabbed not only his duffel bag, but also the first aid kit.

Sammy, DJ, and John had already made their way into the house and were dumping their things before John started his dreaded talk. Sam really wasn't looking forward to this.

"I don't know where you boys are gonna sleep," Bobby said gruffly. "I don't have that much room here."

"Don't worry about us," Sam assured pleasantly. "We'll manage. We've made do with worse before."

"Hey, sasquatch, don't you have some gashes that need stitching or something?" Dean asked carelessly.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. He took the proffered medical kit from Dean and moved to the living room.

Their father appeared at the top of the stairs at that moment.

"We need to talk," he almost demanded.

"_Here we go_," Sam thought.

**Thoughts?**

**Thanks for all the wonderful reviews; I appreciate every single one of them, and they all help inspire me.**

**I forgot last chapter to thank Souless666 for their suggestions on what to call Dean, so I'm doing it now. Thanks!**


	5. Chapter 5 The Dreaded Talk

**Sorry for the**_** really**_** long wait, but my family just moved states…this is the fourth state I've lived in now. Ugh. Anyway, on a brighter note, at least you get a long chapter out of the deal! It, like, 4600 words. Loooooooong by my standards.**

Their father appeared at the top of the stairs at that moment.

"We need to talk," he almost demanded.

Chapter 5 The Dreaded Talk

"Yeah, well, you're going to have to wait a few minutes," Dean snapped crossly as he fiddled with his arm, trying to snap the bone back into place.

"You're hurt?" John asked, instantly concerned.

"Just a little," Sam shrugged, pulling his shirt over his head. He unwound the blood spotted bandage from his upper arm before grabbing a needle out of the medical kit.

He had barely threaded the needle before he found it being rather rudely yanked out of his hand by DJ.

"Hey!" Sam cried. "Give it back." John didn't think it would ever fail to amaze him how little his boys changed over time.

"No," DJ answered a little angrily. He picked up the bottle of alcohol and carefully up ended it over the long gash in Sam's arm.

"I can do it myself," Sam said angrily as he tried once again to snatch the needle back. He seemed to have no regard to the burning liquid being poured down his arm.

"No," DJ rebuked more firmly this time. He quite honestly sounded like a parent scolding an unruly child.

"I don't see why you won't let him do it if it makes him happy," Dean gritted as he tugged his arm in a different direction. There was a small click as the bone slid back into place. John gave a small gasp, but Dean didn't even wince.

He reached towards the first aid box only to find his way blocked by his father. The older man was already looking through the box for something. Dean couldn't guess what his father might need, seeing as none of the people from his time were hurt.

"Honestly, Dean," Sam snapped in frustration as he slumped back against the couch. "I can _do_ it."

"Yes, and that's why you left it for so long," DJ shot back.

"Excuse _me_ for being tired," Sam tried for indignation, but only managed whiny.

"How long has it been since you had a full night's sleep again?" Bobby asked cautiously, as though he expected to get his head bitten off for talking. Sammy was standing next to him and watching the whole seen in unholy amusement.

Their father was now arguing with Dean over whether or not a broken arm meant a cast, and his older self whining seemed to be hilarious to him.

"Ah, somewhere around three or four months, I think," Sam admitted. "That's only if you're talking about a whole eight hour shebang though. I actually slept last night."

"You didn't have to be anywhere until twelve; why didn't you sleep in?" John scolded in an exasperated tone. He was glad Bobby had been able to distract Sam. The younger man didn't even realize his older brother was using his distraction to sew up the gash in his arm. John actually didn't know if it was a good or bad thing that Sam didn't even realize a needle was being pulled through his skin…..

"I literally _can't_ sleep in," Sam retorted. "It isn't possible."

"What time did you get up again, Geek Boy?" Dean questioned distractedly as he tried to fight his father off from putting a cast on his arm.

"Um….somewhere around four thirty, I think," Sam answered thoughtfully.

"Right, that settles it," John declared. "As soon as we're done talking _you're_ going to be taking a nap little boy."

Dean started laughing. "Good luck," he almost giggled. He was rather tired too, but at least he didn't have to contend with fresh Hell memories anymore.

"You saw what happens when I try to nap earlier," Sam sighed tiredly. "Always the same thing, over and over…." he trailed off a little brokenly.

"Don't worry; I have a way to keep the nightmares away," DJ reassured.

Everyone looked at him disbelievingly.

"What, I do," he defended himself.

"Right," Sam said slowly. "Good luck with that," he added, unconsciously copying Dean in his skepticism.

DJ finished off the stitches at the Sam time as John finished incasing Dean's arm in a cast.

"There. That wasn't so bad now, was it?" they said at the same time.

"Yes," Sam and Dean replied together.

Sammy laughed and sat down in-between Sam and Dean. "This is going to be a lot of fun," he grinned as he sat there.

Everyone else stared at him like he had gone crazy. "What?" he asked innocently.

"Are you insane?" DJ asked dazedly.

"Nope, he's good," Sam affirmed. "You don't have to worry about his sanity for over fifteen years."

The stares switched to focus on him.

"What?" John inquired shakily. He did _not_ want to contemplate the possibility of his baby son going insane.

"I'm not sane," Sam said, looking surprised that they would even think that he was.

"Why do you say that, Sammy?" DJ asked softly, worried about his baby brother.

"Well, it might be the fact that the wall in my head holding back the Hell memories broke. Or it might be the fact that I can see Lucifer standing right next to Bobby and holding a knife in Bobby's stomach," Sam answered casually.

Bobby yelped and quickly moved a few feet to the right.

"He's not _actually_ there," Sam said with an eye roll as though that should have been obvious.

"So, that brings us back to the main topic," John jumped in with determination. "What's all this about going to hell?"

"_What_?" Bobby asked, flabbergasted.

"Well, I guess it all started with the yellow eyed demon," Sam deliberated. "We finally caught up with it after over twenty years of searching. Only problem, is that it was possessing you," he aimed the last bit at his father.

John drew in a sharp breath.

"It almost killed Dean. It was _this_ close to killing him. And then you fought it back and took over."

"What?" John asked in confusion.

"Yeah," Dean answered causally. "We kind of have a history of doing that too. Especially Sammy."

"So you held it back and told me to soot you," Sam shuddered, remembering that horrible moment. "We had a special gun that could kill demons, and I knew if I shot the whole thing would be over with. But I couldn't. You we're _begging _me to shoot, but it would kill you too. I couldn't do that."

"And I asked you to?" John clarified in horror.

"Yeah. You and Sammy never really got along during his teenage years," Dean threw in carelessly as he lounged on the couch.

"Anyway, I don't really remember this all that much, seeing as I was dying at the time, but I know Sammy didn't shoot, Dad got really mad about it, and we got hit by a truck (literally) on our way to the hospital. Dad and I both got admitted, (me because obviously I wasn't ok and Dad because he had a broke arm, I believe) but the real kicker is that Sammy was driving, and he didn't get hurt," Dean finished.

Sharp gasps.

"We were all knocked unconscious and woke up in the hospital. I was discharged instantly, Dad was kept in for a broken arm and possible concussion, and Dean was on his death bed. Literally. He was walking around the hospital as a spirit, " Sam reminisced.

"I don't remember this, just FYI," Dean added in.

"Dad called Bobby; told me he was getting things to ward off demons. I had done a lot of research on demons when I was looking into Mr. Dolor-"

"Who?" Bobby interrupted, gaining dirty looks from everyone else because they were all so into the story.

"The demon who managed to take all of Sam's self confidence and self worth before he even turned five," John grunted angrily. "We need to do something about that bastard, by the way. Later though, and I don't want to be the one to do it. We need a rest."

"Sure," Bobby answered. His face looked like it did whenever he talked about the demon that killed his wife. Sam almost felt sorry for Mr. Dolor. If it weren't for all the other kids the demon had killed, he _would've_ felt sorry for him.

"Anyway, the way I remembered it, the things Dad wanted weren't for keeping a demon away; they were for summoning one. But I didn't think he would allow one to get anywhere near us while Dean was so badly hurt, so I didn't do anything about it. Until Bobby confirmed it for me."

"What was I thinking?" John yelled.

Sam smiled sadly. "You had a plan," he whispered, remembering that last argument. "I had about the same reaction. I was hurt that you'd lied to me, and upset because the only reason I could think of for you to be summoning a demon was for another show down."

"I was _that_ obsessed?" John asked brokenly. "Dean was in the hospital, and you thought I would summon a demon for another round?"

"Oh I don't doubt that you were entirely capable of doing it," Dean snorted. "I bet you found some way to make all of it Sam's fault too; you had a habit of doing that."

"What do you mean?" John inquired.

"Exactly what I said," Dean frowned defensively. He had plenty of examples, but almost all of them ended with Sam crying his eyes out in Dean's arms.

"You, uh, you actually did," Sam cut in. "In the hospital with Dean," he continued.

"I confronted you about the demon summoning, and we had a _huge_ fight over it. It started out more calmly then most of our fights did, actually."

"Did we fight a lot?" John interrupted, startled. He and his youngest never fought over _anything_. Sam was perfectly obedient and really cared about what John had to say. Sure, he had quietly asked if they could _possibly_ stay in a few towns a little longer, but John had always done his best to make that happen. Sam knew that.

"You're kidding, right?" Dean asked tiredly. "I can't remember one day after Sam turned thirteen that you all of us were home, none of us were sick or injured, and you and Sam actually got along. If you weren't fight directly then it was cold silence. If it wasn't cold silence it was hot words and filthy looks. Course, I don't know if that's actually saying much, seeing as you were _never_ actually home," he finished.

John decided that he would ask more about that later. He tried to be there for his sons when he could.

"I was the only one angry at the beginning," Sam cut in, not wanting an argument to breakout. "I told you I'd found out. Asked if you were planning to bring the demon there for some kind of showdown. You told me you had a plan, but that just made me angrier. Dean was dying and you had a _plan_. The only thing I'd ever known you to plan for was a hunt. It made logical sense that you were planning another hunt."

John smiled a bit at that. Sam was always very logical. It was part of what made him such a great researcher.

"And before I really knew what was happening we were both yelling. I yelled that you cared more about killing the demon then you did about Dean."

"There had already been an incident earlier where Dean was given a month to live and I called you so many times, but you never picked up," Sam added in. "We found out later that you got rid of your cell phone, but that didn't really matter to me. You left us with no way to contact you. We thought you were getting our calls and just ignoring them. Dean was dying and you would never have known."

"We were yelled _awful _things at each other in that hospital. I'm actually surprised a nurse didn't come running. I said you were always the same. Said that you had a selfish obsession with the demon. You said you thought it was my obsession too. I wanted it dead for what it did, but not at the coast of family. That's the whole point of killing this thing in the first place; so it can't hurt anymore of my family."

John wondered if there was more to that story. Sam made it sound like he had some personal grievance against the demon. Well, more personal then a mother he couldn't even remember.

"You yelled me, reminding me who it had killed. Reminded me that I had begged to be part of that hunt. And I had. I wanted revenge. But never at the coast of family."

Now John knew that there had to more to that story and decided to ask about that later too.

"You said if I had just killed the demon when I had the chance none of this would've happened."

Sam was curling into himself now, obviously still affected by this fight.

"I didn't understand how it was _my_ fault. The demon had already hurt Dean when I finally got it cornered. It wouldn't have done any good to shoot it when it had already inflicted life threatening wounds on Dean. It was in you. I would've killed you too. I yelled that at you (well, not all of it, just the part that I would've killed you too) and you yelled back that Dean would've been awake if I had."

"How does that work?" DJ interrupted. "I was under the impression that I was already injured when you cornered the thing."

"I was," Dean confirmed. "That's why he was so confused."

"After our fight you disappeared. I didn't know where you went, and I didn't really care. As far as I knew you'd left us again. I knew Dean's spirit was somewhere in the hospital because of little things that kept happening, so I set about contacting him. He said there was a reaper after him."

Sammy gasped, probably because he was likely the only one who knew what a reaper was.

"Next day he woke up completely fine. We didn't understand it. He had been dying the day before. Dad came in, asked me to go get coffee. I was actually worried that you were sick because you said you didn't want to fight. I didn't intentionally bait you, but I was angry that Dean practically died while you were gone and you never knew. Again."

"I would've been angry if it were me too," John assured him. He could tell this still bothered Sam a lot for some reason.

"Yeah, well, I came back with your coffee to find you on the floor. You were dead. Flat out dead. No cause of death. It was like you were perfectly healthy one second and the next you had decided to keel over and die. We found out later that you'd made a deal. Your life for Dean's…." Sam trailed off.

Sammy and DJ had gone deathly pale. John, oddly enough, didn't look too upset. "At least it was for a worthy cause," he declared tranquilly.

"You were _dead_," Dean shot back. "Nothing was worth that."

"You were," Bobby and John both cried, shocked at this attitude.

"Yeah, I don't know if you've ever noticed, but Dean has self-worth issues too," Sam put in.

"Like you don't," Dean shot back.

"Of course I do. Not as bad as you though," Sam retorted.

"Oh, right, I forgot; you have it worse," Dean said.

"How many times have you tried to sacrifice yourself for random people now, Dean? Not to mention me," Sam asked.

"You're one to talk," Dean snarled.

"But that doesn't matter right now," Sam hastily added, not wanting to start a fight. "You were in Hell for about ten months," he continued, setting the conversation back on track.

"During those months Dean and I were hunting yellow eyes even more obsessively then normal. We eventually ended up in a ghost town. Well actually, I was kidnapped to the ghost town and just barely got a message to Dean."

Sam took a deep breath.

"There were a couple other kids there who were special like me. We all had powers. I was telekinetic and had visions about people dying that came true. Then there was Andy, who could make people do what he wanted by telling them to do. They had no chose to obey him. Lily, who made people have heart attacks if she touched them with bare skin. She hated her power, but it isn't like any of us got a choice in this whole thing. Jake, who had super strength. And then Ava." Sam stopped again. "I had met Ava before. I would even go so far as to say we made friends. She had visions like I did. As far as I knew that was _all_ she did."

That sounded vaguely fore shadowing to all the people who didn't know. Dean had drawn into himself, knowing what was coming up.

"We were each taken aside and told that this was supposed to be a contest. The last one left living was to be made leader of a demon army. I was yellow eye's favorite. I actually think it was just to spite you, Dad," Sam informed the man. "I found out later that he had people watching me through my whole life; teachers, my best guy friend in college, hell, even my first date to the prom was a freaking demon." Sam shuddered.

"How come I never heard about this part?" Dean asked, appalled.

Sam averted his eyes. "Lucifer told me. Then he killed all of them. Bloodily," he said flatly.

"Oh," Dean deadpanned.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. Everyone else looked confused.

"But back to cold oak; the ghost town," Sam continued. "Lily was the first to die. Then I got Andy to send Dean a message. It was a new power for him, and I think it caused Dean quiet a lot of pain, but we needed to get out of there."

"If I had gotten there faster. Just a few seconds…" Dean trailed off.

"It's ok, Dean. There wasn't anything you could've done," Sam assured him.

"I could've _found_ you sooner. God I _should've_ found you sooner." It was obvious that Dean still really beat himself up about it.

"You _couldn't have_, Dean. End of story," Sam insisted. "We barricaded ourselves on a building after that. God, I was stupid. I knew someone had killed Lily, but I thought it was demons, and she was a friend…Ava killed had killed Lily. She controlled demons to do it, but it was her behind the whole plot. Then she killed Andy. I trusted her…"

There was another horrified silence.

"She turned on me next. She was going to kill me, but Jake crept up behind her and snapped her neck. Everything was going just the Azazel wanted it to."

"Who's Azazel?" DJ asked.

"The yellow eyed demon," Sam answered. "Though he isn't a demon. More like fallen angel. All demons have names. I could name a couple of the worst ones if you wanted me to. Actually, I think I could name every single demon ever in existence."

"How?" Dean asked warily.

"Lucifer literally _burned_ them into my brain while I was…you know," Sam replied.

"Shit," Dean exclaimed, thinking about how much that must have hurt.

"Yeah," Sam agreed again.

"Jake and I were the only ones left at cold oak. We fought. He said it was the only way for him to live, and wouldn't listen when I tried to convince him it wasn't. I knocked him out; I wasn't going to kill another human."

"No, _I _got that pleasure," Dean scowled, his face scaring all the people from this time. "Bastardly, son of a _bitch,_ back stabber," he swore.

"Jake killed me," Sam clarified for everyone. "Stabbed me in the back, actually. Dean was only a few feet away when it happened. Last thing I saw was him."

"Oh God," DJ whispered. He ran out of the room and there was the sound of retching from the other room. Both Sams looked concerned and moved towards him, but they were stopped by Dean.

"Leave him," they were ordered.

DJ reentered the room a couple seconds later, looking positively green. "What happened then?" he asked weakly. "Did I commit suicide?" He actually looked kind of hopeful with this question.

"NO!" both Sams yelled.

"It crossed my mind a few times," Dean admitted nonchalantly. "But no. I made a deal. My life for Sam's. I had a year."

Everyone else by Sam stared at him.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "And he thought he wasn't going to have to tell me about it. He honestly expected me to believe that I hadn't died; that I was just knocked out or something."

"It was worth a shot," Dean defended to the disbelieving looks. "He didn't need that hanging over his head."

"So after a year and a lot of angst, Dean died. He stayed dead for four months, and he was back for unspecified reasons," Sam informed them. "Everything went ok for awhile. Dean was dealing with hell, and I had….other problems."

Dean snorted.

"Eventually I did a lot of stupid things, and started the freaking apocalypse," Sam admitted.

"You are _not_ taking full responsibility for that," Dean insisted flatly. "There were a lot of people at fault there. You, Ruby, about a million angels, me; the list goes on and on. Besides, there are many _many_ things that I would change if I could. I pulled a freaking _dad_ on you Sam," Dean said.

"You pulled a what?" John asked curiously.

"I went all 'you walk out and don't ever bother coming back' on him. Because we all know that worked so well the first time," Dean added sarcastically.

"What?" John asked, aghast.

"Later," Dean waved away.

"I was the one who put on the straw that broke the camel's back," Sam argued.

"So you want to take the blame for thousands of mistake that even half yours. You're stupid," Dean said childishly.

"Thank you," Sam shot back. "Now, are you going to let me continue on, or should I wait until you're done pouting?"

"You've got center stage," Dean told him.

"Thank you," Sam repeated. "I let Lucifer out of his cage."

"What?" Bobby asked.

"I let _Lucifer_, like, the devil, fallen angel, whatever else you want to call him, out of his cage in hell," Sam reiterated.

"Wow," DJ said, sounding impressed.

Sam looked at him oddly. "It was chaos," he proclaimed. "Death everywhere, horsemen running around, angels trying to get us to say yes, Dean even got to meet the horseman of death."

Everyone overlooked the part about saying yes since they didn't understand it.

"So how did you ice him?" John asked. He knew his boys, and he knew they wouldn't rest until they had killed the bastard.

"We tried the colt, but it didn't work," Dean informed him. "The colt can kill anything except arch angels. Then Sam came up with the stupidest plan _ever_ in the history of stupid plans."

"It wasn't stupid," Sam protested. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, but still….." Dean trailed off.

"What was it?" DJ asked.

"The only way to get Lucifer back into his cage was for me to let him into my head and then open the door to his cage and jump in," Sam told them.

"But wouldn't that put you-" John started.

"In Hell, yeah," Dean finished.

"So you didn't do it, right?" Bobby confirmed anxiously.

"You're kidding, right?" Sam asked incredulously. "I was the _only_ one who could do it! You honestly think I would be so selfish as to value my life over the rest of the world?"

"But if you had kept looking I'm sure you would've found _something_," DJ tried, aghast at the simple _idea_ of his little brother in hell.

"No," Sam assured him firmly, "there wasn't another way."

"So you went to Hell?" John inquired incredulously.

"Yep," Sam replied nonchalantly. "I was in Hell for one hundred and eighty years."

A chorus of gasps.

"Up above it was around a year and a half," Sam continued, sounding as though this were a completely normal observation. "Time works that way in hell. I was back almost instantly, actually, but it was without my soul. My body was running around without a soul for around a year and a half. I was like T-1000. Then Dean got Death (the horseman) to put it back in. Death put up a wall in my head, blocking me from all the memories of Hell, and everything I did while I was soulless."

"Castiel went on a power trip awhile ago. He was fighting a civil war in heaven, and he needed information he could only get by breaking my wall. He broke it. It was going to have to come down eventually, but now I have to deal with all those _horrible_ memories earlier then I needed to." Sam sighed. "They aren't treating me well, I'll give you that."

"And that's why you're having nightmares," DJ finished.

"Yep," Sam nodded, leaning back against the couch with a yawn.

"Nap time," John observed. He needed time to think on all of this, and Sam needed sleep.

"I told you, I _can't_," Sam reiterated. "I can't deal with anymore Hell then I have to today." He sounded utterly miserable.

"And I told you I had a way to keep the dreams away," DJ responded.

"Right," Sam drawled, drawing out the "I" sound.

DJ made a noise of frustration and grabbed Sam's hand. He dragged Sam out of the room. No one else bothered to follow them out, thinking they'd be back in seconds. Even Sammy couldn't think of anything that could keep the nightmares away.

Meanwhile, DJ didn't stop dragging Sam until they reached the bedroom the two normally stayed in when at Bobby's. He shoved Sam gently down onto one of the beds, and Sam didn't bother protesting.

"Shoes off," DJ ordered.

Sam looked at him incredulously.

"_Now_, if you please," DJ instructed. "Unless you want me to do it for you?"

Sam immediately started removing his shoes, knowing Dean was completely serious with that threat.

"Good boy," Dean told him, obviously pleased.

Sam continued to stare at his brother, wondering if he had gone insane. "I'm almost thirty years old, Dean," he protested, "being called good boy makes me feel like a dog."

Dean patted his head condescendingly as he shoved something into Sam's arms.

"This," Sam proclaimed, holding up the bedraggled animal, "is a teddy bear." His eye brows shot up to his hair line when DJ simply nodded wisely.

"You used to sleep with it every night," he remembered with a fond smile. "It was one of the only things that survived with fire, and you wouldn't go to sleep without it. Your younger self still uses it when he had really bad nightmares, so I figure it might work for you."

"But I'm almost thirty," Sam repeated.

"So?" Dean asked. "Look, Sam, no matter how big you get I'm always going to be your big brother, and I know best; you should be used to it by now," he advised.

Sam made a noise of protest, but found himself being shoved to lay down before he could really say anything. Sam's face went bright red as he realized that not only was he still holding the teddy bear, but Dean was tucking him in.

"Go to sleep," Dean hushed as Sam went to complain again. He brushed the hair gently off Sam's forehead. "I'll be right here to wake you up if you start to have a bad dream."

And then it was suddenly impossible for Sam to keep his eyes open. He needed one last reassurance first, however. "Promise?" he pleaded, forcing his open to lock with Dean's. He didn't realize how childish he sounded, and truth be known he didn't really care at that point. He needed to know big brother was going to be there.

"I promise," DJ pledged.

So Sam drifted off.

DJ sat down on the other bed and watched his brother sleep. Sam always looked so young when he slept. He looked even younger than usual with the teddy bear. He hoped the bear would keep Sam asleep for awhile at least, but if it didn't he would be there.

Just like always.

**So, how did I do? Everyone seemed to lied big brother little Dean, so I figured a bit more of him wouldn't hurt. **

**I'm listening to Fight Fire with Fire by Metallica and eating GAINT choclate chips. This makes me very happy. BTW, the album Ride the Lightening is _awesome!_**


	6. Chapter 6 Sneaking out and Getting Caugh

**I don't own supernatural.**

…**..I hate this chapter. I felt like the tension between John and Dean needed to come to a head, so this was born. But I still hate it, so…..**

Chapter 6 Sneaking Out and Getting Caught

Sam slept through the whole rest of the day until he was woken that night by Dean.

"De?" he asked sleepily.

"We're leaving," Dean declared, throwing Sam his duffle bag.

"Why?" Sam asked, much more alert now.

"Shhhhhhhhh," Dean hissed. "Not here." He motioned over to the other bed where DJ and Sammy were sleeping, cuddled around each other.

Sam quietly got up and followed Dean out. He had no idea what was going on, and he was still tired (though he realized with embarrassment that DJ had been right about the teddy bear as he hadn't had any nightmares) but he trusted Dean enough to do as he was told.

The two of them snuck through the house without waking anyone, which was a pretty difficult as the house was full of hunters. They were hunters themselves and they had been trained by the best; the people who were currently sleeping. So they got through with very few problems.

As soon as they got in a random car and were on their way, however, Sam felt it prudent to ask Dean what this was all about.

"What's going o-on?" he yawned. His eyelids drooped, but he yanked them back up before they could close all the way.

"We have a job to do," Dean declared. "You wrote down all the stuff about that hunt in Topeka, right?" he questioned.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, feeling more awake. "But I thought Dad said no hunting?" it was half statement, half inquiry.

"He did," Dean affirmed. "But since when do you do everything Dad tells you to?"

Sam was fully awake now. "You mean to tell me we just snuck out to go _hunting_?" he asked incredulously. "I thought we were talking about taking a break after a couple more hunts anyway."

"We were," Dean asserted. "Well, we were going to try, anyway."

"Then would you like to explain what we are _doing_?" Sam pleaded a little hysterically.

"I'm not letting Dad tell me what to do anymore," Dean declared determinedly. "He lost every right he had to order me to do anything when he told me to kill you."

"So this is some type of teen rebellion fifteen year late," Sam groaned. "Turn the car around, Dean, I want to go back to sleep. If we get there fast enough we might be able to pretend we just went for a drive 'cause we couldn't sleep."

"No," Dean defied.

"Oh my God," Sam moaned. "Really? You're really gonna do this _now_?"

"Yes," Dean answered.

"The man hasn't even ordered you to kill me yet. Hell, he hasn't even kicked me out yet! Do you understand how childish this is?"

"Yes, Sam, I do, thank you," Dean snapped.

"Dean, we just snuck out of the house, ran off, and probably hotwired this car from Bobby," he didn't know because he hadn't been awake enough to pay attention. "That's like putting a neon sign over your head that says 'deal with me!' to Dad!"

"I'm too old to be- for that," Dean sneered. "I'm thirty three." But there was a tiny hint of uncertainty in his voice, and Sam latched on to it.

"I bet you told him the same thing when you were twenty five, and tell me, did it make a lick of difference then?"

Dean's silence was answer enough.

"That's what I thought. You know Dad's rule-"

"You act like a child you can deal with being treated like one," he and Dean finished together.

"Exactly, so let's go home and pretend none of this ever happened," Sam coaxed.

Dean seemed to think about it for a second, then his face hardened and Sam knew he had lost even before Dean said anything.

"No," Dean crushed what little hope he had left. "Dad has to learn that we aren't children and won't do something just because he says to."

"And I have no problems with that," Sam agreed. "Heaven knows I've said the same thing enough times. But that isn't what we're doing here! All we're doing here is proving that we _are_ still children who need to have their every move dictated for them," he argued, using his training for all the school debates he had participated.

"I'm going," Dean said in his 'that's my final answer' voice. "Are you coming or not?"

Sam sighed. He couldn't leave Dean to hunt on his own, and he knew very well that Dean would find some way to sneak out if (and this was a big if) Sam managed to drag him back.

"I'm coming," he decided reluctantly. "I'm not letting your ass die on a hunt just because I wasn't there to save it."

"More likely I'd be saving _your_ ass," Dean retorted.

"You wish," Sam threw back. They fell into the familiar pattern of teasing until the relaxed atmosphere lulled Sam back to sleep.

_**Supernatural**_

Sam was woken by Dean again about six hours later. We got investigating to do, Sam," Dean ordered as he shook Sam awake.

Sam groaned, but pulled himself out of the passenger's seat. "Where are we?" he slurred, obviously still tired.

"Topeka," Dean answered.

"Great," Sam groaned.

"Hey, it was your choice," Dean threw back indifferently.

"Yeah, because there were _so _many other options for me to chose from," Sam snorted with an eye roll.

Dean shrugged and got out of the car. "What did you say were hunting here?" he asked.

"I think it's a ghost," Sam replied. "I pretty much pinpointed who it is and everything. I think all we need to do is burn it."

"Let's do some interviewing, just to be sure," Dean suggested. "Who are we checking out first?"

_**Supernatural**_

It was a long day, full of interviews and cross questioning. In the end it turned out Sam had been right from the beginning.

The burning of the bones did not go smoothly. Not that it ever went smoothly, but hey; an exhausted guy could hope!

It was very late when they went limping back to their hotel. In Sam's case "limping" was quite literal, seeing as he had managed to badly twist his right ankle.

Dean wasn't paying attention (not normal for him, but he hadn't been acting normal since this whole thing started) but Sam saw the impala parked in the lot and mentally groaned.

He forced himself to stand straight and not limp at all. It would just make their father angrier to know that one of them had been hurt in this stupidly childish stunt.

As Sam had suspected, the two of them had barely entered their room when the door closed behind them without either of them touching it.

Dean started to spin around, but again found himself pressed up against a solid object by his father.

"Come on, really?" he objected loudly.

"I believe I have much more of a right to be asking that," his father growled into his ear. "You're at least thirty years old, Dean. I shouldn't need to put a guard on your bed to make sure you don't run off in the night like an unruly teenager."

Sam shifted uncomfortably, then bit back a gasp of pain when his weight landed on his sore ankle. He was going to be lucky if that wasn't broke, and being pressed against a wall certainly wasn't doing it any favors.

"Corners. Now," John added when Dean looked ready to protest.

He was using the "Daddy" voice. Not even Sam had ever dared disobey when _that_ tone was in use.

He never used his "Daddy" voice when they were hunting, or doing anything that was even faintly related to hunting. That tone of voice only came out when they were acting like toddlers, and normally resulted in them getting spanked like toddlers.

Sam couldn't even find it within himself to disagree with their father this time. He and Dean _had_ acted like rebellious teenagers.

He walked as carefully as he dared over to the nearest corner and leaned against it with a sigh. This was _so_ not what he wanted to be doing right now. What he _wanted_ was a shower, to bandage up his ankle, and a nice soft bed, not to stand in the corner like a two year old that had thrown a temper tantrum.

The lecture that followed was long and impressive. It helped Sam keep his mind off of the pain in his ankle at first. As John's speech wound on, however, it was increasingly hard for him to pay attention through the pain. He knew he _should_ listen more closely in case John asked questions about whatever he was saying later, but he just couldn't.

Suddenly he became aware of the lack of noise in the room. He was debating whether or not it was a good idea to glance behind him, when something touched his shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

He cringed violently away until his father's face swam into view among the black dots that swarmed his vision. Surely his ankle wasn't _that_ bad, was it? Maybe it was just because he was so tired?

"Sam?" John's worried voice reached him through the haze.

"'t's, ok," Sam attempted to placate. "'t's just my ankle."

John swore, and Sam blinked. "You didn't check him over?" he threw to Dean. Sam presumed his older brother was still in his own corner, because he could see him.

"No, funnily enough, I didn't," Dean snapped. "I trusted him to actually tell me if there was anything too bad."

"Not too bad," Sam insisted, rubbing wearily at his eyes. "Ju-just a little ti-ired," he yawned.

"I'm sure," John snorted as he dragged his son to the bed farthest from the door. Sam blinked again as he was pushed unceremoniously onto the mattress.

John sat down hard on the floor and started unlacing Sam's shoes.

"I can do it," Sam near whined, frustrated by how helpless the younger versions of his father and big brother seemed to think he was.

"You lost the privilege of being allowed to take care of yourself when you went hunting half dead on your feet," his father retorted, gently slapping his hand out away.

His own hands then went back to work on Sam's shoes.

Sam's shoes were soon removed, and were quickly followed by his socks. His father didn't know which foot was injured, so he was doing a through inspection of both of them.

Dean was leaning anxiously over John's shoulder by the time the man revealed Sam's swollen ankle.

Both of them sucked in a breath as the black and blue flesh came into view.

"Like I said; I'm sure," John said dryly.

"Doesn't hurt that much," Sam protested. "It's not a bad break. I actually think it's only a bad fracture."

"'Cuase that makes it so much better," Dean snorted. "I told you to _tell _me when you get hurt. Hell messed with your pain tolerance too much for you to be deciding for yourself if it's bad."

"You boys are lucky you're took old to be spanked," John growled. "As it is you're both grounded until farther notice. We're going to a hospital to get this casted, and then we're going back to Bobby's. End of story, absolutely _no_ arguments."

"Yes Sir," Sam said instantly. He was actually quite surprised his father hadn't turned one of them over his knee the second they walked through the door, and to hear that they were too old for that was kind of a shock. He certainly wouldn't miss it, though, so no complaints from his corner. No pun intended.

Dean didn't answer, but Sam considered even that better than arguing right now.

_**Supernatural**_

An hour and a half later, Sam was sleeping in the backseat (how he managed to curl into such a small ball even with a brand new cast hindering his progress was anyone's guess), and Dean was sulking next to John sulking.

"Why did you drag him out like that?" John asked, breaking the stony silence. "You're supposed to look after your brother, Dean, not drag him off in the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping. He only hurt his ankle this time, next time it could be more serious. You're just lucky I had a good idea of where you were going and didn't have to call a buttload of other hunters to help me find you."

"Why do you automatically assume it was my plan?" Dean groused. John knew had to be feeling pretty tired himself.

"There's no way your brother would've been able to muster up the energy to be rebellious right now. Look at him; he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks."

"He lied, you know. About how long it's been since he had a good night's sleep," Dean whispered as he glanced into the backseat. "He didn't sleep while he was soulless, and he's been having nightmares ever since."

"Really?" John questioned in concern.

"Yeah," Dean confirmed. "He always tries to downplay anything bad that happens to him, especially lately. It's probably been closer to two years since he slept through the night without being completely loopy on medication or knocked out."

John's jaw tightened as more worry than ever flood through him.

Sam was a mess, physically and probably mentally right now. He had never seen his son so down. Maybe that was because Sam hadn't wanted him to, though. He was starting to see that his little baby son was far more adept at hiding things than he had thought possible.

He watched his oldest son drift off to sleep next to him, proving he still knew his oldest son's tells pretty well too.

He wondered what had happened between him and his oldest son. He _knew_ something had to have gone down for Dean to be throwing him the uncertain looks he had been receiving recently.

Maybe this would be an eye opener for all of them.

_**Supernatural**_

It was about nine o'clock in the morning when they got back to Bobby's.

Sam was woken up and hustled inside for breakfast. He yawned as his father pushed him down into a chair.

"Eat," it was a command, and at one point Sam would've resented that fact. Now, however, he knew it was simply his father's way of showing concern.

Breakfast was finished with little talking from anyone. Sammy was staring at both Sam and Dean like they were insane. DJ must have realized that something was amiss in a more serious context than running away, because he kept glancing worriedly from Sam, to Dean, to their father.

It was annoying, but Sam didn't blame him for caring, so he didn't say anything. Besides, the way he was eyeing Sam broken ankle was more irritating.

He _kn_ew DJ was dying to demand to know what had happened, after which he would begin to baby Sam, but at least the boy had the tact to understand that now wasn't the time.

Sam wondered where that tact had gone, because older Dean certainly didn't have it.

When they finished it was silently, but unanimously decided that they would sit in the living room for awhile.

Talking started up again, in groups this time. Sam dozed on the couch as Sammy and Dean talked about the best way to kill a siren, and DJ, John, and Bobby tried to be subtle about planning the fishing trip Sammy had been so excited about before. Sam thought if they wanted to keep it secret then they should really lower their voices.

The peace was interrupted by Castiel popping into existence next to Sam on the couch.

Sam leapt to his feet with a yell of surprise, and Castiel blinked at him.

"I am sorry, am I interrupting something?" he inquired in his stupidly serious way.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean yelled, launching himself at the angel. "Take us back home!"

Castiel blinked again. "I am sorry, but my father will not allow me to do that. He has proclaimed that you will stay until you are well and truly rested. He has also decided that this is some much needed family time, but realizes this cannot happen with two members (one from each time) missing. So he ordered that I come and reunite all of you. I must tell you that it took a large amount of effort to pull your version from perdition."

He snapped his fingers (something Sam remembered Gabriel doing. Maybe it was an angel thing?) and two figures fell out of midair.

The larger one landed squarely on Sam's lap, and the smaller landed on DJ.

"I will be going now. And Dean? I am not a bastard. It is physically impossible for an angel to be a bas-" he was gone as soon as Dean tried to tackle him again.

The rest of them were left in stunned silence for a few minutes until-

"Get the hell _off _of me!"

**And there we are; the chapter I hate. Ugh. At least now I can move on without feeling like I have to worry about John or Dean erupting any second.**

**Random proof of how weird I am!**

**Yesterday, my dad comes down to my room and goes, "I'm going to the store to get some salt to put around the perimeter of our yard so no ghosts or demons or anything can get in. I'm gonna want you to help me put it down later."**

**And I (instead of saying something like, "yeah right" or "no you aren't") go "Make sure you get enough!"**

**The salt ended up being for the water softener.**

**I'm listening to "Let Put My Love Into You" by AC/DC. My dad got me the "Back in Black" album, and I was really excited. So now I'm going a little crazy and listening to it over and over again. I love classic rock. **

**So….thoughts?**


	7. Chapter 7 Little Brother

**I don't own supernatural**

**I was fast this time! Inspiration has been kind of slow for this story for awhile, but my muse decided to work while I had my back turned, and this** **popped out!**

Chapter 7 Little Brother

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not on you; you're on me," DJ said pleasantly (as though he was commenting on the weather), looking at the mini Adam with interest.

This was hardly heard over Sam's "Language, Adam!"

"I didn't know you at six, Sammy. I'm more than likely to tell you where to shove it," Adam mumbled into his shoulder.

"You ok, Kiddo?" Sam asked, rubbing his hand up and down Adam's spine.

"Well, that depends on your definition of ok," Adam deliberated. "Physically, I'm not in pain. Mentally I'm sick and tired of angels pulling me out of my death. Not that my death was all that pleasant this time, but if I _hav_e to die, why can't I just stay dead?"

"Join the club," Sam snorted at the same time as Dean cut in with, "Because that's not the way Winchesters roll."

"Dean," Adam said, finally looking up from Sam's shoulder. "I'm sorry. If I had known I wouldn't have- but they were angels, and I wanted to see my mother."

"Hey, don't worry," Dean reassured. "I would've done the same thing if two guys I didn't know showed up and tried to overturn everything I knew."

"No you wouldn't have," Adam smirked. "You would've punched them and told them extremely explicitly where they could shove it, and started demanding to know where you brother was."

"True enough," Dean grinned. "You like that phrase, don't you?"

"Sammy likes it. That's what he told Lucifer every single day for three hundred and sixty years; I guess I kind of picked it up."

"Three hundred and sixty?" Dean whispered.

"Oh yeah." He turned to look at Sam. "You didn't tell him?"

"He didn't need to know. A hundred and eighty was enough for him to worry about."

Adam rolled his eyes. "You're an idiot. Time in hell depends on where you are, and what Lucifer likes. Where you were, time went at a ratio of one month to ten years, but you were close to the mouth of Hell so the angels could pull you out when they needed to. Sam and I were in the deepest bowels of the place where Lucifer controls everything. He liked torturing us, so he made time go _very_ slowly."

"See, this is why I always insist you tell me everything; you have no sense of what's important and what isn't when it comes to yourself," Dean huffed.

"Didn't want you to worry," Sam mumbled, looking down.

"As informative and interesting as all this is, who is he?" DJ asked.

Little Adam had backed away from all of them towards the door when full sized Adam stopped him. "Don't bother; Sam'll just hunt you down later. He's extremely good at hide and seek too."

"He's our youngest brother," Dean answered.

Everyone stopped dead. "What?" Sammy finally asked.

"That month that Dad disappeared? He got hurt, met a widow, and, well, the rest should be pretty obvious. Thanks for telling us about him, by the way. We simply _lov_ed meeting him for the first time after your death _and_ his. We couldn't even tell the difference between him and ghoul because we'd never met him," Dean directed this at their father.

"Ghoul?" John asked, alarmed. "He was supposed to be safe this way. That's why I left him with his mother."

"Yeah, go 'head and tell that to the ghoul that ate me," Adam scowled. "That isn't a good memory to have. And that doesn't even include all the other monsters that bothered me over the years. Do you know how hard it is to kill a demon when you have no idea what you're dealing with in the first place? I read through the Bible about a million times after it finally told me what it was, but I didn't really find anything, so I turned to other sources."

"You got bothered by monsters?" DJ asked worriedly. Over protectiveness didn't just extend towards one baby brother after all. He would probably always be a little more protective of Sam, but it looked like Sam could cover as far as Adam was concerned.

"What, you thought the monsters would leave me and Sammy alone simply because you weren't there?" Adam laughed.

"Sammy too?" John questioned worriedly, as he looked towards his two youngest sons. "Why didn't you ever tell us?"

"You didn't need anything more to worry about," Sammy mumbled.

"Is that what you say about everything that hurts you?" DJ demanded angrily. "You have to tell me, or I can't do anything about it. How did they even get to you with all the protections we had placed before we left?"

"Not all monsters are completely stupid," Sam answered. "They attacked me on my way to and from school, sometimes even at school. Whenever they could get me with out another hunter watching me. I learned to deal with it; no biggy."

"Yeah, until one of them kills you later," Dean snapped.

"None of them ever killed me," Sam said mildly.

"But they could've!" John scolded.

"Can this wait 'till later? I'm pretty sure we've got my younger self thoroughly freaked by now," Adam interrupted.

"Stay here," Sam practically ordered as he got to his feet.

Adam didn't protest, just watched as Sam cautiously made his way to his younger self's side. He caught sight of the cast wrapped around his big brother's ankle and drew in a sharp breath, but correctly assumed now wasn't the time to have a freak out over it.

Sam sat down on the floor as soon as he was within arm's reach of mini Adam. He didn't say anything at first, just sat quietly and watched the younger boy.

"What-?" Dean started to ask.

"Shh," the older Adam shushed. "You think he hasn't had to deal with a six year old version of me before? The first time was the time he took the longest to calm me down. It took him about an hour then. Now he can have any version of me at any age practically jumping into his arms within a minute and a half."

Sure enough, Sam rejoined the group then, holding mini Adam expertly on his hip.

"This is your older self," Sam explained gently, pointing to the bigger Adam.

"Hi," Adam greeted cheerfully. He got up off the couch and stocked to Sam's side, standing close enough to be touching at all times.

Sam slid his free arm around Adam's shoulders without a second thought, and Adam leaned into him.

"That's Dean," Sam continued, nodding at his big brother since he couldn't point now. "He's the oldest, and he can get really bossy," he proclaimed.

"Hey!" Dean complained. He knew what Sam was going for, though, so he wasn't too offended.

And Sam's maneuver worked anyway, which was proven when mini Adam giggled a little. The tiny smile that touched Sam's lips made it worth being made fun of. He had made both his baby brothers happy without having to do anything at all.

"That's his younger self. We're calling him DJ right now 'cause his middle name is Jonathon, and we don't want to get him and the bigger Dean confused," Sam continued.

"Hey," DJ smiled at the little boy.

Baby brothers were made to be treated like God's most precious gifts, as far as he was concerned. Having another brother was thrilling, and he could see Sammy was liking the idea of having someone to take care of. Not that Dean would be shirking his responsibility in that respect, but he guessed it wouldn't be _too_ horrible to let Sammy help him.

"That's the younger me," Sam introduced. "We're calling him Sammy right now."

"Does that mean I can't call you Sammy?" the older Adam pouted.

Sam rolled his eyes. "What would you call him to differentiate between the two of us?" he asked.

Adam thought for a few seconds. "I don't know," he finally gave in.

Sam ran a hand through his hair with amusement painted all over his face.

"That's Uncle Bobby," he motioned to the older man standing near the door. "He's really crotchety, and if he says you're an idjit, it means he likes you."

"Watch what you say, boy. I ain't deaf," Bobby grunted. "And I can be nice if I want to be."

"So you never want to be?" Dean questioned innocently.

Bobby growled and gave Dean a look that said he would be sorry for that comment later.

Dean shrugged unconcernedly.

Sam turned to their father last. "I think you know-"

"Daddy," mini Adam declared, looking at John.

"Yeah," Sam smiled. "Now we just need to find a way to differentiate between the two of you."

Bigger Adam wrinkled his nose. "All my nicknames are really weird," he complained. He threw a slightly accusing look at Sam.

Sam laughed. "Don't look at me; I learned from Dean," he chuckled.

Adam switched his glare to Dean.

"What's the most normal one you have?" John asked curiously.

Dean kind of had a thing with nicknames (he went crazy with them when it came to Sam) and he was curious to see what his younger son had come up with.

"Well, my name doesn't have any _normal_ abbreviations, so the only thing we've got to work with there is Ads. Which isn't weird at all," his youngest said sarcastically.

"And then there's the ones that aren't derived from my name. The most normal one from that group is probably Skittles."

"Skittles?" both Deans and John asked incredulously.

:"Skittles," Sam and bigger Adam confirmed in unison.

"Why?" Sammy asked.

"Adam has something of a skittles fetish. I started calling him that after the first time I found him in the kitchen, buried under a pile of skittles so big I could hardly see his head," Sam explained, a sly grin stretching across his face.

"The kitchen?" Dean questioned with confusion.

"Yeah," Sam stated. "See, Lucifer was amazing at physical torture, but Michal specialized in mental/emotional torture. He decided they could torture us more easily if they allowed as to get attached to each other."

"So we got to live hundreds of different lives," Adam took up the story. "each time we lived through a normal life span, and then died into a new life. But I never aged past fifteen, so Sam got pretty used to having to deal with me under that age."

"Michel is almost more creative than Lucifer, so the lives were all different too," Sam continued. "Sometimes we were brothers in ancient Greece, some times I was the 'dad' and Adam was the 'son' in a modern day neighborhood."

"And you frigging told Michel that you were too old to play house," Adam scowled. "Do you have any concept of how to _avoid_ being flayed within an inch of your life? Like _at all_, dude?"

Everyone watched with dropped jaws as Sam and Adam casually went over what was actually _hell_ to them.

"Well what was I supposed to do; let him beat the hell out of you for behaving like a five year old when you _w_ere a five year old? Oh, and let's not forget that he's the one that made you five in the first place," Sam snarked.

"Yes!" Adam cried. "Not like you ever let him touch me anyway," he grumbled. "I could've taken my fair share, but noooooooooooooooo; you wouldn't give in."

"Damn right I didn't," Sam declared. "Did they actually think I would ever take up their _stupid_ offer? It sucked!"

"Oh I don't know, it sounded pretty good to me," Adam snarled back.

"They wanted to take me off the rack (or whatever else I was strapped down on) in exchange for putting you on!" Sam exclaimed angrily. "I would _n_ever do that."

"I did," Dean put in. "I got off the rack."

"Let's put it this way," Sam ground out. "My baby brother was the next and _only_ other person in line. I highly doubt you would've gotten off the rack if they told you they were going to put _me_ on-"

"Hell _no_!" Dean interrupted.

"Exactly! So why in the name of all things good and holy would _I_ get off when they told me they were going to put Adam on?" Sam finished.

Dead silence.

"That's what I thought," Sam drawled smugly. He shifted his weight slightly off of his bad foot.

"What happened to your ankle?" Adam broke the resulting silence.

"I would _lov_e to know that too," DJ piped in.

"Oh," Sam blinked. "I broke it on a hunt yesterday."

"You went _hunting_ yesterday?" Sammy inquired disbelievingly.

"It was my idea," Dean defended.

Sam looked at Dean with raised eyebrows. It wasn't often that Dean tried to take the blame for things that were at least partially Sam's fault now-a-days. When they were younger, it had been a regular occurrence, but that had changed (like everything else) with Stanford.

Why was Dean reacting like he had when they actually _b_elonged in this time?

"But I went along with it," Sam added in. "It was an easy hunt anyway. I was just tired," Sam shrugged.

"There's no such thing as an 'easy' hunt," Bobby snorted. "You should know that by now if you have as much experience hunting as I think you do."

"I've been out in the field since I was twelve," Sam informed him. "And believe me when I say there _is_ such a thing as an easy hunt, and I would simply _love_ to be able to focus on the less challenging ones back home."

"So why don't you?" John asked curiously. He wasn't really keen on the idea of his babies taking on hunts that made what they were hunting now seem easy. It made his skin crawl to think of them doing it without his help.

"You're kidding, right?" bigger Adam asked. "We're _Winchesters_; there's no way we're going to be allowed to let the big things blow over without our help. Hell, I got dragged out of my death _twice _now, both by angels."

"You're lucky it was only twice," Dean snorted. "How many times have you died now, Sam?"

"I lost count," Sam dismissed carelessly. "But you've died more, if you count the Tuesday."

"I don't remember, so it doesn't count," Dean denied.

"Yeah, well, I do," Sam complained. "I so _did not_ need to deal with all those memories."

"Not much I can do about that. Memory spells are too tricky to play around with," Dean stated apologetically.

John had just opened his mouth to interrupt and scold about playing around with magic, when someone started pounding on the door.

"Bobby! Let us in, Bobby!" the voice came from outside.

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. Here comes trouble.

**And I'm done!**

**What does everyone think of Adam? I've never really written him before, but I liked his character and decided to give it a try.**

**I _really_ need a nickname for him, so help would be appreciated. It sounds too weird to write "Skittles said" and I _looked up_ nicknames for guys called Adam without finding anything that sounds normal to write.**

**Right now I'm stuck with writing "big Adam" and "mini or little Adam" to differentiate.**

**My computer is having problems, so I don't know when I'm going to be able to get the next one out. **

**Listening to "Re-education (through Labor)" by Rise Against. Love that band.**


	8. Chapter 8 Coulrophobia

I now have a nickname for Adam, but it doesn't come in until next chapter.

Chapter 8 Coulrophobia

Bobby rushed to the door at the familiar voices. As soon as he yanked open the solid slab of wood, Josh and Caleb burst in and slammed the door behind them.

"Bobby, they're following- what are you doing here, John?" Josh interrupted himself. "What're you hunting?"

"Nothing," John answered. "We were here for a rest. Doesn't look like we're gonna get one now, though," he added. "What's up?"

"You gotta get the kids outa here, Jonny," Caleb panted. "It's commin' and it preys on children."

John's face slid into concern mixed with a certain amount of fear as soon as the words left Caleb's lips.

"Dean, get Sammy and Adam _out_. Take them to that one place…..oh God, what's it called? Plucking Whistles Magical Garden, or something," John fumbled.

Sam's head shot up. "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie?" he questioned, dread and something suspiciously like terror seeping into him at the name.

"Yeah, that's it. Thanks, Sam," his father agreed distractedly.

"No!" Sam cried, completely forgetting his dignity as he huddled into a ball. "Uh-uh. No way. Nonononono,-" he muttered. He was almost rocking himself now at the unexpected mention of the dreaded place.

Everyone stared at him.

"What's wrong with Plucky's?" John asked. "I thought you boys liked it there?" he directed this last bit at DJ.

The boy shrugged. "It's not our favorite place. I get kicked out for being too old now, and it kind of wasn't all that fun after the first couple of times anyway, but we've never had any real problems with it," he answered.

"It sucks," little Adam stated flatly. "It's really gone down hill since the management of the chain changed." This sounded slightly odd coming for a six year old.

Josh and Caleb started at the newest addition to the Winchester crew, having just now noticed him. They had been throwing uncertain looks at Sam, Dean, and bigger Adam for the duration of their talk (seeing as they were adults and potential threats) but had yet to say anything.

"How so?" John asked.

"It smells like puke, there's literally no such thing as quiet, the food tastes like ass, the majority of the other kids are bullies, and the clowns kept staring at me in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable," bigger Adam listed off easily.

"You know, it's kind of funny; Sam said the same thing about this dude he bunked with in prison," Dean observed.

Their father's head immediately whipped around. "What the _hell_ were you doing in _prison_?" he demanded.

Josh and Caleb watched warily, shifting uncomfortably.

"Relax, we were workin' a case," Dean placated. "That time," he added under his breath.

"Back to Plucky's," DJ directed. He had two kids on his hands, and he needed to keep them safe. Sam got that.

"No," he repeated. "Take them somewhere else," he half pleaded. "There has to be _some_ other place." His tone was slightly desperate, but he didn't care.

"What's chasing you?" Dean suddenly cut in, directing his question at Josh and Caleb. "What were you hunting?"

"Uh, rawhead," Josh replied, his face pulling into a startled expression.

"Oh," Dean relaxed. "We're good then. We don't have to go anywhere."

"What? Why?" Bobby inquired.

"There is no rawhead. I remember this," Dean replied. "It turned out to be just a really badly thought out joke by two jerks those two," he jerked a thumb at the new arrivals, "pranked awhile back. I remember Dad being pissed, and the joke getting turned on the idiot who decided it would be a good idea to pretend to be a rawhead."

"Dad shot him, didn't he?" Sam threw in.

"Yep," Dean grinned. "Right in the arm with an electric bullet. Stupid dick ended up in the hospital."

"…How do you know that?" Caleb questioned warily. Sam could see he was on the verge of reaching for his gun.

"Josh, Caleb, this is Adam (my youngest), Sam and Dean. From the future," John introduced.

"Been a long time," San tried to smile. He was still _really_ shaken up by the threat of Plucky's.

"What-but-how?" Josh finally settled on.

"You have an angel for an ex-best friend, these things happen," Dean dismissed.

"An-" Caleb started.

"Angel," Sam finished for him. "They're not allowed on earth right now. Michel doesn't want them here. Give it a few years," he advised.

"_You're_ little Sammy?" Caleb asked incredulously.

"In the flesh," Sam smirked shakily.

"So what's with the mini freak out secession you just pulled?" Josh added.

He was the older of the pair, and looked on the Winchester boys as his self-claimed nephews.

"I-nothing. I just _don't like_ that place," Sam waved away.

"Yeah right," his dad snorted. "Honestly, Sam, you're a hunter. You're scared of very few things, but I can honestly say you're afraid of that place."

"Oh my God," Dean suddenly groaned. "This isn't about your- it _is_," he sighed. "Seriously, man? Aren't you just a _bit_ too old for that now? Did you have an issue with one, or something, 'cause this is getting a bit ridiculous."

"What?" Bobby queried.

"Sam has a phobia of _clowns_, of all things," Dean informed.

Sam went bright red and ducked his head. It was an irrational fear, but he dared _anyone _to go through what he did with clowns and not be scared of them.

"Do we need to talk about this?" Dean suddenly asked. It was so out of character that Sam's head shot up as his face clouded with puzzlement.

"Do we need to get a physiatrist or something?" Dean continued without giving Sam time to answer. "Isn't that what normal people do when they have a phobia of something?

"Yeah, and I'm way ahead of you there," Sam admitted. "I've been to at least three different physiatrists, and none of them have done anything for me."

"What? When did you have time to do that?" Dean questioned, shocked out of his ramble about how much they needed to deal with this.

"First time was with Jess," Sam smiled sadly. "She found out I had a phobia, and freaked. She had one a long time ago, and a physiatrist helped her a lot, so she figured it would be a good idea for me."

Dean snorted. "And how did that work for the poor man that tried to counsel you?" he grinned.

"Not too well. I kept going back, but nothing was happening. He finally told me he didn't think coulorphobia was fatal, so I shouldn't have anything to worry about and sent me on my way. I let Jess think I was cured," Sam answered.

"Ok, that's one," John agreed. He looked irrationally worried. Come on, it was just a fear of clowns; what was there to be worried about?

"Then there was Roosevelt Asylum," Sam continued.

"That place we worked a case?" Dean confirmed, looking startled. "With the creepy ghost doctor who possessed you?"

"Yep, that's the one," Sam frowned. "You made _me_ go in to get the information from the physiatrist, remember? And when you filled the forms, you put that I had a phobia of clowns. Since I refused to talk to the dude about pretty much _anything_ else, he fastened on that."

"Was the last time that other asylum?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. You did the forms for that one too, and put the same thing on them. Since group time wasn't going all that well, our wonderful doctor went on and on and _on_ about that. Thanks for that, by the way."

Adam laughed. "You two take after each other way too much," he smirked.

"Huh?" Sam and Dean questioned at the same time.

That got everyone laughing, relieving the tension a little bit.

"It's just, you would've done exactly the same thing if I had to go get information from a physiatrist too," Adam stated.

"Maybe," Sam conceded.

"You have a phobia too?" John asked worriedly. "Do you _all_ have hidden phobias?"

"Yes," Sam said matter-of-factly. "Dean has aviatophobia, or aviophobia or pteromerhanophobia whichever name you prefer with just touches of cynophobia, I have coulrophobia and claustrophobia, and Adam _had_ soteriophobia (doesn't have it anymore) and theophobia or zeusophobia. I think we all have touches of satanophobia and hadephobia," he listed off.

Everyone stared blankly.

"Sam? English, please," Dean requested.

"That _was_ English," Sam replied. "I can do Latin for you if you'll understand that better," he teased.

"Normal people English would be nice," bigger Adam huffed.

Sam laughed. "Fine," he gave in amiably. "Dean has a fear of flying and dogs, I had a fear of clowns and small spaces, Adam _had_ a fear of depending on someone else and _has_ one of anything pertaining to God or religion. And then we all have touches of phobias of Satan and Hell."

"Oh, well why didn't you just say so?" Dean inquired. "I agree, except I don't know Adam all that well. Seems reasonable, though."

"If you read off a list we could probably name others," Sam put in. "Those are just the ones I have memorized and are really important."

All the people from the time they were currently in stared at them like they'd gone insane.

"Ok, we officially need to find out _why_ you guys got all these fears," Caleb breathed.

"Mine are easy," Dean shrugged. "I hate flying because when I was really little, someone threw me really high in the air and didn't catch me. So not cool. I still don't remember who it was, but ever since I've associated flying with being dropped like that. And then dogs…..hell hounds in particular, if that tells you anything."

"The things that collect the souls of those damned to Hell?" Josh asked.

"Yep. They killed me when my deal came through. They're all over Hell, and they're damn ugly," Dean explained.

"Why-?" Caleb started in alarm.

"Easy," Dean cut him off. "Sam died. I made a deal and got a year. I died and went to Hell. An angel pulled me out. End of story."

Caleb and Josh gapped at him.

Adam started talking to take the focus off of Dean who was clearly uncomfortable. "I was scared to rely on anyone else because I always had to do everything for myself. I didn't want to get used to someone helping me with things, and then have to go back to being by myself. Kind of hard to maintain that phobia when you get turned into a helpless baby by the devil," he deadpanned.

"Why were _you_ in Hell?" Josh questioned, aghast.

"Long story involving an apocalypse, a cage, and dick angels. I'll tell it later if you want," Adam dismissed. "But that's were the phobia of anything even remotely connected with God came from. Michel and Lucifer were supposed to be the best and worst of the angels. I didn't really see much of a difference between them."

"Me neither," Sam pondered. "They _were_ brothers, though. The closest of any of their siblings except maybe Cas and Balthazar. But then again, Cas _did_ kill Balthazar, so maybe that isn't the best example."

"Well that's sickening," Bobby stated.

"Angels are twisted," Dean waved away. "We always knew that. We should've known better than to trust one."

"What about you, Sam?" Josh asked.

"Lucifer liked stuffing me into tiny spaces. I think it was 'cause I had so much trouble fitting. I'm so big, you know?" Sam dismissed. "And we all have Satan and Hell phobias because we've all had to deal with both of those." He carefully skated over his clown phobia, and that fact didn't escape John.

"What about clowns?" he queried.

_**Supernatural**_

The room was silent for a few seconds, but Adam spoke up in a thoughtful tone right before John was about to ask again.

"Hey Dean? Did you ever work a case in my town? Sam would've been about…..fourteen, I think?" his youngest questioned.

"Uh, yeah, I think so. Why?" Dean answered, obviously thrown off balance by this seemingly random question. John didn't blame him; he wasn't expecting that either.

"Shit," Adam breathed. He then turned towards Sam. "Did they hurt you? They did, didn't they? My God….how did you _not_ notice?" he fired at Dean.

Sam had averted his gaze from everyone and was carefully studying the floor.

"Notice _what_?" Dean demanded. "You haven't told us what I was supposed to see yet."

"Oh my God, you _really_ didn't see," Adam stuttered. "There had to have been _bruises_; how could you _not_…." He trailed of.

"Adam, don't," Sam half pleaded. "He doesn't need to know, and Dad told me to suck-"

He was cut off by his younger brother. "You shut up. You should've told him _years_ ago. You don't know how far they went with other kids, and I don't know how far they went with you. Hell, I don't even know why they _targeted_ you," Adam ranted.

"You wanna enlighten the rest of us?" John inquired, a pit of dread growing in his stomach. Why couldn't Sam just _tell_ them when he was having problems?

The word Dolor jumped to mind, and John indulged himself in a moment of anger before turning his attention back to his youngest, who currently held all the cards.

"About two weeks after the new kids, that being Sam and Dean, skipped town again, there was a well publicized arrest made at the Plucky's nearest my house," Adam started.

"I wasn't surprised. I mean, they had cornered _me_ enough times to put a little cloulrophobia in _me_, and I was one of the ones they messed with the least. See, there's only three reasons to be at a Plucky's frequently."

He held up three fingers.

"One, your care taker works there," a finger went down, "two, your parent/parents have to work long hours at a low paying job to support the family," another finger, "or three, your parents don't care. That makes Plucky's the perfect breeding ground for bullying and adults looking to take advantage of children. Most of the kids there have parents that won't know/ won't care about the difference."

"Crap-" John breathed. "Since when? When I was kid, those places were, like, the coolest things ever."

Adam jerked a thumb at his younger self. "You heard him; management changed."

"And it brought about all these changes in the span of a few years?" Caleb asked incredulously.

"Plucky's breaks down easily, but it also builds back up easily," Sam muttered. "After the arrests, management changed again. It was a much more wholesome place within months."

"Of course, the children bullies didn't change, since the regulars still belonged to one of the three afore mentioned groups, but the adults got better. There were no more arrests made at any Plucky's, all the way up to the present in our time."

"How do you know?" DJ queried suspiciously.

"I kept track of it," Sam mumbled with bright red flush spreading across his cheeks. "Who did you think placed the anonymous phone call to the police a couple days after we skipped town?"

"Why not when we still _in_ town?" DJ asked again, though he had an inkling of why.

"Are you kidding?" Sam snorted. "The police would've been looking through the register for all the kids that had been signed in since the dudes were hired; they do keep records of that kind of thing, you know? And they have emergency contact numbers. I didn't exactly want police showing up on our doorstep asking awkward questions and trying to see inside."

"And then you would've found out, and then you would've freaked, and probably tried to strip search me, regardless of who was in the room with us, and just….no thank you," he finished.

"And why would I feel the _need_ to strip search you?" Dean suddenly broke into the conversation.

"They made the arrest on the grounds of attempted molestation," Adam spoke when Sam didn't say anything. "And that was just what they saw. A couple other kids came forward with bruises and a couple cuts."

"Did you know molestar means 'to bother' in Spanish?" Sam babbled when everyone stared at him. "I know, right? Odd coincidence-"

John cut him off. Someone had tried to touch _his_ baby? Someone had hurt Sammy, and his little boy hadn't said anything about it?

It shouldn't startle him anymore, but it did for some reason.

He squatted in front of the couch Sam was still seated on. It made him shorter than his baby boy, but it also meant that he could easily keep Sam's attention on him.

He put his hands around Sam's face and guided Sam to meet his eyes.

"Sammy, did they touch you?" he asked. His tone was somehow tight, but tender and patient at the same time. He sometimes amazed himself with how well he could mix conflicting tones.

"No. And I made sure they didn't do it to anyone else either. They just wanted someone to beat on," Sam tried to wave it away and avoid meeting John's eyes at the same time.

He wasn't successful at either task.

"And you thought it would be ok to let them beat on you…..why?" John kept his tone soft, not wanting to scare his son away from answering. Sammy was sensitive, and you had to be careful or you wouldn't be able to get _anything_ out of him.

"If they had me, they wouldn't touch anyone else. I was always the last one to leave, anyway, so it isn't like they had to hide it from anyone. The impala makes a really distinctive noise, and they got used to listening for it coming after a couple days." The words fell out hesitantly. Sam had kept this secret for a long time; John could understand that it would be kind of hard to tell him this.

"We couldn't get the police involved, so I couldn't make a call while we were there, and I couldn't just let them hurt little kids. I didn't really see any other options," Sam confessed.

"You could've _told_ us, which would've led to you not going there anymore," Dean hissed. He was angry and he didn't care who knew it, John observed.

"And then they would go right back to hitting the littler kids. I wasn't going to have that hanging over my head," Sam defended.

"There are ways to….._persuade_ people not to touch you," Josh informed John's son. His eyes glittered menacingly enough that even _Bobby_ was startled for a moment.

John hadn't known his old friend cared about his children _that_ much. Neither Josh nor Bobby was ever going to have any children, so they got as close to Sam and Dean as John would let them.

John was somewhat possessive of his children, though, and was proud of that fact.

"He's right, Sammy. You should've said something. We would've worked something out," John admonished.

"There anything else you wanna share?" Dean asked, his tone somewhat annoyed. "Like, I don't know, any other people who've hurt you, but not badly enough that you ever felt the need to tell anyone?"

"Please," Sam snorted. "The only reason there wasn't a trail of beaten up bullies following us around the country is because I didn't tell you about them."

"That time at the school we went back to a couple years ago? Trueman, or something? Yeah, that wasn't the first bully I dealt with, and it certainly wasn't the last. You just didn't hear about it."

"You know," Adam mused. "This is why everyone is so overprotective of you. You have no sense of self-worth, so everyone else has to make sure you don't sacrifice yourself for some random stranger."

"Very true," DJ agreed. "We need to work on that."

"Later," Sam demanded. "I'm going to sleep right now."

And to everyone's amazement, he did just that. He curled into a ball, and drifted off without the slightest preamble.

"Well," John finally blinked. "I guess we should let him sleep. Who wants lunch?"

**I don't know how I feel about this chapter. I always wanted to write something about Sam's clown phobia, and this had been in the back of my mind since the episode with Plucky's came out. But I don't know if I like how it turned out. (shrugs)**

**So we just moved states, and next year I'm going to public school for the first time. (I've been home schooled all my life) This naturally means that we had to meet the principal. **

**Because my luck sucks, we went straight through the cafeteria during lunch on our tour of the school. Of course, I didn't escape anyone's notice that there was a girl no one knew walking through with the principal and her parents. This meant there were whispers about "the new girl" all around me.**

**This is exactly why I didn't start public school as soon as I moved in. It's so much easier to fit in when everyone's new on the first day of school. I didn't want to be "the new girl", and now I'm a bit worried that someone will remember that I'm "the new girl" next year. Oh well.**

**And there has to be one person who isn't satisfied with just whispering, of course.**

**So this one kid sees me, and starts asking all his friends if "that's a new girl". Then he yells pretty loudly, "Hey! Hey new girl? Are you a new girl!"**

**(face palms). Way to draw attention to something I was kind of hoping everyone would ignore dude.**

**So I told his that, yes, I was new and would be starting next year. **

**His immediate response was, "Oh, sweet!"**

…**I don't know how to feel about that. **

**My dad, strangely, didn't take to this boy all that well. I wonder why? (please note the sarcasm)**

**On an entirely different note, I'm probably one of the only people in this world that can say that their decision of which Winchester was their favorite wasn't influenced in the slightest by what they look like.**

**This fact stems from the fact that I wasn't actually introduced to the show through television. I'm such a weirdo that I was reading on fanfic one day, and accidentally clicked on a link to a supernatural story.**

**I liked the story, so I kept reading in that fandom. Before long, I decided Sam was my "favorite" with Dean following in a close second.**

**I actually had the start to a couple of my fics before I even saw the show. Then I was simply hooked.**

**Thoughts?**


	9. Chapter 9 The Secrets of Sam's Ipod

**I don't own supernatural. I also don't own the songs mentioned in this chapter. They are by Three Days Grace and Three Doors Down. You can find them (and the lyrics) on youtube.**

Chapter 9 The Secrets of Sams Ipod

It was dark when Sam woke up again. He wasn't worried about being unable to sleep through the night, though. He was still plenty tired.

He grabbed his Ipod on his way into the kitchen. By the time he reached the empty room (he needed to find the rest of his family soon) he was humming along with the song blasting into his ears.

His Ipod was his pride and joy.

That might be because he had personally recorded at least half the songs stored on the thing, but it also might be because it held so many great memories of happier times.

Most of the songs on there were one of a kind, and he was eternally grateful it had never been broken.

It was also his guilty pleasure.

Dean didn't know about all the music he had recorded when he was in college, and Sam didn't ever want him to know. He didn't want to listen to Dean tease him for being emo.

His songs were poured straight from his emotions. Frustration, confusion, joy, grief, anger; you name it, Sam had written a song to relieve it. It was a much healthier method than some others he had seen.

Some kids kept a diary. Some kids sliced through their arms. Some kids wrote stories. Sam made music.

So his Ipod was not only a source of pleasure, but also an outlet for any problem he had.

He had even managed to sneak into a couple of recording studios since he had rejoined Dean.

This had been especially necessary to his sanity while he was sneaking off to see Ruby.

Half the time Dean thought he had spent with the demon, had actually been put to much better use with a microphone in his hand.

He was half way through eating his sandwich (and humming a random song) when everyone tramped in through the door from outside.

"Morning," he chirped.

"Finally awake then, sleepy head?" Adam greeted.

"Shut up AJ," Sam smiled.

"You know, that would've been a good nickname to mention a couple hours ago," Adam blinked.

"AJ?" Dean blinked.

"Adam Jacob," Adam explained. "It's my middle name."

"Oh, yeah, that would've been a good thing to bring up," DJ agreed. "So big Adam is AJ for daily use for now. I so reserve the right to come up with random nicknames."

"Good for you," Adam mumbled. He wasn't used to having a big brother, and everything being new was a little overwhelming for the six year old.

"Go find something to do while Uncle Bobby makes dinner," John instructed.

"Ok," DJ agreed, taking both his younger brothers by the hand and pulling them out of the room.

"Why does Uncle Bobby need Daddy, Uncle Josh, and Caleb to help him make dinner?" Adam questioned. "Is he a really bad cook so he needs all of them to help him?"

"They only said that so we'd leave them alone, oh brilliant one," AJ snorted.

This earned him a smack on the back of his head from Sam. "Be nice," the taller man reprimanded without removing his ear buds.

AJ waited until Sam was situated on the couch with his volume turned up, before rolling his eyes and making a rude hand gesture.

Dean smirked and said nothing, but DJ went to say something about it.

"Don't roll your eyes at me," Sam grunted. "And I see you doing that with your hands again, I'll find something else to keep them busy."

"You suck," AJ mumbled quietly enough that there was no possible way Sam could've heard it.

"Thanks," Sam replied.

AJ gaped at him for a few seconds, then crossed his arms and pouted.

Sam went back to his peaceful humming.

For awhile everything was quiet. Everyone was tired, so there was no fighting. No one was really doing anything, actually.

That was until Sam started muttering the words to his songs under his breath, and DJ was alerted to the fact that he didn't just have one song stuck in his head. He was singing a different song every few minutes, and his tone of voice was odd.

"What're you singing?" he asked curiously.

"Huh? Oh, just some song on my Ipod," Sam replied, pulling an ear bud out for the first time.

"What's that?" Sammy asked.

"It holds music," Sam explained. "You can download songs from computers to listen to later. You can even use it to record random every day happenings."

"Cool," DJ whistled appreciatively. "Can you make it so we can all hear it?"

Sam didn't _want_ to set it that way. Luckily, he had the perfect excuse to keep it to himself.

"Dean doesn't like the music I have on it," he excused himself.

"That's 'cause all you listen to is emo crap and girly music," Dean sighed. "You still have Avril Lavgine on there?"

Sam smirked. Yes, he was good at programming his Ipod to do things that other Ipods wouldn't.

Dean knew almost all his usual passwords, so Sam had programmed his Ipod to open specific songs when any password Dean knew was typed in, and different songs when Sam typed in his actual password.

He was so awesome.

"Actually, I replaced her with Taylor Swift. Didn't you know dear old Avril went out of style _y_ears ago? Jeez, Dean, keep up here," he snarked.

"You're lying," DJ declared, looking shrewdly at Sam.

"What?" Sam and Dean said together in the same startled tone.

Dean was startled that Sam would lie to him about something as inconsequential as musical preferences, and Sam was startled that DJ had caught him in the lie. Dean never had.

Dean launched across the room and grabbed Sam's Ipod, backing away before Sam could make a grab at it.

"Hey!" Sam fairly yelled over the music now blasting through the room.

His ear buds had been pulled from the input place when Dean snatched the little device from him.

He liked to listen to music loud, drowning out everything around him. So now it was blaring from the small piece of technology so loudly it was a little surprising.

"Shhhh," everyone else hissed at him.

_If you feel_

_So empty_

_So used up_

_So let down_

_If you feel_

_So angry _

_Just get up_

_Let's start a riot_

_A riot_

_Let's start a riot_

_Ahh_

_Let's start a riot_

_A riot_

_Let's start a riot_

_Let's start a riot_

_A riot_

_Let's start a riot_

_(a riot)_

_Let's start a riot_

_A riot_

_Let's start a riot_

_Let's start a riot_

_A riot_

_Let's start a riot_

The song ended in a crescendo of electric guitar and Dean stared at Sam in stunned silence.

"What the hell?" it was AJ who voiced this thought. "This isn't the type of thing you ever played in Hell."

"No, it isn't," Sam agreed. "Now if you would just _give it back_, Dean, so we could forget about this whole episode?"

"No," Dean denied. "Who sings it? I like the band."

Sam went bright red and struggled for something to say to that.

"I don't know. One of my college buddies up loaded all the songs for me," he finally settled on.

He had to get it back and put it on mute soon, or the whole secret was going to come out.

That had been a recording of a concert that he actually put on while he was in Stanford.

He and a couple of other guys had put together a band as a just for fun kind of thing. Before they knew what was happening, they were being invited to play gigs at every local bar (plus a few not so local ones) and had a loyal pack of rabid fangirls.

It had never amounted to anything, and he _really_ didn't want to listen to Dean picking fun at his only emotional outlet.

_Dean_ might be able to burry every single problem they had ever had, but _Sam_ needed to deal with them somehow.

Since talking was out of the question, he had turned to his music.

Dean's hand went up like he was going to give it back, but then he glanced at the screen and realized how much time there was left on this recording.

Jess had taped that whole concert for Sam. Sam had later cut out the parts that included anything that remotely resembled a fan, but he had left in all the parts he had done talking.

He hadn't seen any harm, since he was going to be the only one listening. He didn't mind the talking, it was only the fan's appreciation that made him uncomfortable. So that was all he had cut. He was regretting that now.

"Hold on, maybe they'll announce the band next. There's still a couple of minutes left," Dean requested.

"No!" Sam cried, lunging for his Ipod.

Dean was startled, but held it out of reach. "What's wrong with you?" he inquired. "It's only five minutes, Sam."

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but closed his eyes as his own voice poured out of the device in Dean's hand.

His expression crumpled into resignation and humiliation.

"_So this is our last number of the night," _his Ipod self declared, his voice flushed with happiness and excitement.

Jess had said later that his face had been alight with the same emotions, and that she had never seen him so happy before.

"_I'm gonna try drums again, and hope I don't get my nose nearly broken this time,"_ the voice spilling another of Sam's secrets informed them.

Adam, ignoring the all important fact that his big brother played rock music, felt the need to ask, "You hit yourself in the face playing drums?"

"No," Sam replied. "My normal drummer was an idiot, and wanted to see of I could keep of the rhythm of the song while he threw things at me. He was apparently bored," he deadpanned.

"You play drums?" DJ cut in with a much more important question.

"_And we're gonna leave you tonight with 'Home'," _his Ipod self finished.

At least now Sam didn't have to answer. Drums were the hardest for him. He was better at any time of guitar _and_ keyboard than he was at drums.

_I'll be coming home just to be alone_

'_cause I know you're not that, and I know that you don't care_

_I can hardly wait, to leave this place_

_No matter how hard I try, you're never satisfied_

_This is not a home I think I'm better off alone_

_You always disappear, even when you're here_

_This is not my home I think I'm better off alone_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a home_

_By the time you come home, I'm already stoned_

_You turn off the TV, and you scream at me_

_I can hardly wait, 'till you get off my case_

_No matter how hard I try, you're never satisfied_

_This is not a home I think I'm better off alone_

_You always disappear, even when you're here_

_This is not my home I think I'm better off alone_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a _

_Home, home_

_This house is not a_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a home_

_I'm better off alone_

_No matter how hard I try, you're never satisfied_

_This is not a home I think I'm better off alone_

_You always disappear, even when you're here_

_This is not my home I think I'm better off alone_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a_

_Home, home_

_This house is not a home_

The music faded into the silence that now permeated the room.

"What was that?" John asked from the doorway he was propped on.

Everyone jumped, not having seen him come in.

"Nothing," Sam dismissed. "Really, it was nothing. Can we ignore the fact that it even exists? Please?"

"Depends on what it is," his dad answered. "Cause I still don't know, if you didn't realize."

"When?" Dean questioned.

"Right before Flagstaff," Sam answered while everyone else was still trying to puzzle out what he meant.

"Look, it isn't a big deal. You burry your emotions. I couldn't, so I did this. It's not harmful, and I can rant all I want without anyone thinking anything of it. Leave it."

"Why didn't you just _tell me_?" Dean insisted.

"And have you taunt me even more about my girly emo ways? No thank you," Sam snorted.

"One sec," Dean held up a finger, grabbing his own Ipod from his pocket.

_I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind_

_I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time_

_I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon_

_I feel there's nothing I can do_

_Yeah_

_I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon_

_After all I knew it had to be something to do with you_

_I really don't mind what happens now and then_

_As long as you'll be my friend at the end_

_If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman_

_If I'm alive and well will you be there a' holdin' my hand_

_I'll keep you my side with my superhuman might_

_Kryptonite_

_You call me strong _

_You call me weak_

_But still you secrets I will keep_

_You took for granted all the times I never let you down_

_You stumbled in and bumped your head_

_If not for me then you'd be dead_

_I picked you up_

_Put you back on solid ground_

_If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman_

_If I'm alive and well will you be there 'a holdin' my hand_

_I'll keep you by my side with my superhuman might_

_Kryptonite_

_Ba da da da no no_

_If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman_

_If I'm alive and well will you be there holdin' my hand_

_I'll keep you by my side with my superhuman might_

_Kryptonite_

_Yeah_

_If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman_

_If I'm alive and well will you be there a holdin' my hand_

_I'll keep you by my side with my superhuman might_

_Kryptonite_

_Oh oh oh_

_Oh oh oh_

_Oh oh oh_

"_Wow, that was pretty good,"_ an unfamiliar voice issued from the Ipod.

A very undignified yelp sounded. _"You weren't recording that, were you?"_ Dean's voice asked. _"Cause I was actually just warning up."_

"_This is a recording studio; normally when people start singing, they expect to be recorded,"_ the new voice said incredulously.

"_Yeah, well, people normally give me some warning before they break out the recording equipment,"_ Dean snarked.

A couple seconds of silence.

"_That thing isn't still recording, is it?"_ Ipod Dean questioned.

"_Uh__…__.yeah, it it,__"_ the other man replied.

"_You mind turning it off?__"_ Dean prodded.

"_Oh__…__I forgot-__"_ and then it went silent.

"He wasn't the brightest dude I ever worked with," Dean grimaced.

"I've worked with worse," Sam face twisted worse than Dean's had.

"You still think I'd tease you about that?" Dean inquired smugly.

"Why not?" Sam shrugged. "Just because you've done it, doesn't mean I can do it without you making fun of me for it."

"Oh come on," Dean threw his hands up in exasperation. "When do I do that?"

Sam raised his eyebrows with disbelief. "Dean, I don't think there's one thing in my life that you _haven__'__t_ teased me about at one point. You tease me for doing something, and then tease me when I stop doing it. Damned if I do, damned if I don't."

"Like when?" Dean repeated.

"Well, there's your philosophy when it comes to girls for one thing," Sam supplied. "You tease me for being a prude, but if I spend a night somewhere, you tease me for that too."

"Well that's normal," Dean dismissed. "I don't tease you about things that actually matter."

"Yeah, that's a good one," Sam snorted. "What did you call those cracks about 'Team Free Will', any injury that I managed to get, and (when I was younger) my grades? All of those things were kind of important, y'know? Can you even name three things that you've never taunted me about?"

"….I never said anything about your nightmares," Dean volunteered. "And…..and-" he trailed off, trying to think of something else to add.

"That's what I thought," Sam agreed, patting Dean's shoulder with a fake sympathetic face.

"I don't mind it most times; you wouldn't be my big brother if you didn't make fun of me. I just wish you'd lay off things that mean something," he finished.

"Why didn't you ever say anything? About any of this, actually? It's like _you_ don't mean anything to yourself. You're acting like I did right before I went to Hell. Speaking of, I think I'm starting to understand why you were so frustrated with me," Dean added randomly.

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Trust me, this world would be _much_ better off if I had never been born," Sam snorted.

Protests rose from every corner of the room, and Sam started. He had forgotten about everyone but him and Dean.

John narrowed his eyes. "This all leads back to that demon you met in school, doesn't it? You have no self esteem because you've _never_ had any self esteem. You probably don't even know _how_ to feel good about yourself because you've thought you were worthless since you were a toddler," he concluded.

He then directed his attention to Sammy. "You can assure yourself were going to be working on that. Bobby actually sent me in here to say dinner was ready."

**Abrupt ending. (shrugs)**

**Thanks to everyone who thought of names for Adam. **

**I always thought Kryptonite was the perfect song for Dean. **

**Music is my muse, so you can expect to see more of it. **

**On another note, I had an argument with the road today. Yes, it came out of the fight much better than I did, but at least I managed to communicate that our hatred is mutual. **

**I went running, and we live in a place populated by hills. I was going around the corner, and didn't realize there was a dip in the road. (face palm)**

**So I ended up tripping, of course.**

**I lightly skinned one palm, and took a patch of skin the size of a nickel off the other one.**

**They were both mostly superficial, though. Thank God.**

**I'm not saying that it didn't hurt (it stung like the dickens when I had to clean it off) but I didn't think it was that bad until I looked down and saw blood. **

**I also managed to land almost entirely on my hip bone.**

**Now, I don't know if you've seen many ex high level gymnasts, but it normally takes some time to gain weight.**

**I worked four hours a day five days a week. I didn't _have_ any extra fat to begin with.**

**Then I lost all my muscle. Now I'm freakishly skinny. (My skinny jeans are too big around the waist) (pouts)**

**This also means that I bruise easily. **

**Hence, taking all my weight on my hipbone _hurt_.**

**I didn't think I could've scraped it with sweatpants on, but I managed it. (rolls eyes)**

**And I didn't know this until I got home because it was under my shirt and pants. There was no way in hell I was playing around with my clothes in the middle of the road.**

**By the time I got home, it was bleeding.**

**And because I have such great timing, I also managed to this while I was home alone. **

**Oh well; they'll heal. **

**Until next time!**


	10. Chapter 10 Secrets Long Kept

**I don't own supernatural. Skillet owns the songs in this chapter.**

**Sorry this took so long. I got writer's block. **

Chapter 10 Secrets Long Kept

Most of dinner was uneventful. Caleb and Josh had gone to find a motel to bunk in for the night and would be back in the morning.

After the drama in the living room, everyone was a little quiet.

Except Sam. He should've been the most upset, but he wasn't shaken in the slightest.

He was humming under his breath for most of the meal, but finished before everyone else and started muttering the lyrics under his breath.

"_My secret side I keep, hid under lock and key, I keep it caged but I can't control it."_

More humming.

"_I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin, I must confess that I feel like a monster. I hate what I've become-"_

"Can you _shut up_!" Dean suddenly yelled at him.

Sam looked taken aback for a second, then his face hardened. "What's your problem? It's not like I'm doing anything. The volume could come down quite a lot," he snapped.

"What the hell is with your lyrics?" Dean yelled back.

"What do you care? It's called emotional release for a _reason_, Dean. Besides, you've made your opinion on this subject perfectly clear anyway," Sam cried.

Then he took a deep breath and cut Dean off before he could answer. "Whatever; it doesn't matter. Just…..just drop it, ok?"

He left the room quickly.

AJ watched him go, then turned to Dean. "That was completely uncalled for and out of line. You're a dick."

"What're you talking about?" Dean demanded.

"Well, considering that I happen to know every single word of that song was most likely inspired by you, I don't think you have much room to talk," AJ snarked.

"I never called him a monster," Dean denied. "Well, except that one time…."

"Oh really?" AJ asked. "'If I didn't know you, I'd hunt you. Dad said to save you or kill you, and I'm done trying to save you-'"

He probably would've continued, but Dean interrupted him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa; I never said that!"

"Really?" AJ questioned. He held up Sam's phone (which he must have stolen when Sam wasn't paying attention) and pressed the play button.

The same words Adam had just repeated echoed out over the room.

"I never said that!" Dean repeated. "When was it sent? Who- shit," he stopped.

"What?" AJ inquired.

"Zachariah," Dean answered, dropping heavily back into the chair he didn't remember standing from.

"What about that bastard?" AJ asked with steel in his voice.

"He said Sam was going to get one final push. The one thing that would make him kill Lilith and start the apocalypse," Dean revealed. "I never thought about what it was. I _did_ call Sam and leave a message that day, but _that_ wasn't what I said."

"Well _he_ thinks it is. You know he spent the whole year leading up to jumping into the cage waiting for you to kill him?" AJ put in.

"My God," Dean breathed. Then he fled the room, snatching the phone from Adam at the same time.

"Ask him about Ruby while you're at, would ya?" AJ called after him.

The rest of the table sat in stunned silence for a second, then John spoke up.

"Adam, what did you mean, 'Dad said to save you or kill you'? I wouldn't- surely I didn't ask Dean to-"

"You did," AJ confirmed. "You had to know something went down between you and him. He doesn't hero worship you anymore. Actually, he has daddy issues almost as bad as Sam does."

Dropped jaws were his only answer.

He shrugged and turned back to his meal.

**Supernatural**

"Sammy?" Dean asked as he entered the room they were sharing.

Sam grunted in reply and rolled away from him.

"Sammy, I didn't know," Dean whispered.

"Didn't know what?" Sam frowned as he rolled back towards Dean. He never _had_ been able to stay away from Dean when Dean was hurting. Dean had always hated that before (he liked to grieve in peace) but now he could use it to his advantage to get this conversation going.

"This message," Dean held up Sam's phone. "It isn't from me. I didn't send it. I never even _said_ anything like that."

"Wha-? Why do you have my phone!" Sam demanded, snatching the thing back and cradling it.

"Adam snitched it from you and I snitched it from him," Dean dismissed. "I didn't send that message," he insisted.

"What messa-?" Sam started to ask.

"Don't play dumb," Dean admonished.

"Then who did?" Sam questioned quietly.

"I'm thinking angels," Dean admitted. "Zachariah said you were going to get one final push, and I think this was it. How could you think I would say something like this?"

"You said don't come back. You knew what that meant to me, and you said it anyway," Sam reminded him. "I always thought if you could say _that_ to me, then you could say anything to me."

"Besides," he added. "You thought I got myself out of the panic room."

"You didn't?" Dean inquired, eyebrows shooting upwards.

"Dean, you were pretty much in charge of my discipline when we were kids, right?" Sam confirmed.

Dean blinked, not having expected the random change of subjects. "Unless you messed up hunting or training, yeah," he replied anyway. "Why?"

"Do you remember what I did when you put me in time out or grounded me?" Sam pressed.

"Uh, you tried to argue your point first," Dean smirked, thinking of his tiny geeky baby brother explaining just _why_ he shouldn't be sent to a corner.

"Then, if I still thought you needed to be punished, you...you stayed where I put you," he concluded, seeing where Sam was going with this.

"So why did you think it would be any different just because I got older?" Sam asked.

"You didn't let yourself out." It was a statement, but Sam treated it like a question.

He shook his head. "Cas let me out. And after I got out I didn't have a _choice_."

"You _always_ have a choice, Sam," Dean disagreed on reflex. Making a mental note to try and pound Cas's face in again.

"No," Sam shook his head again. "You don't understand."

"Then _make me_ understand, Sammy. What _happened_?"

"I _can't_! She said-oh," he cut himself off. "Maybe I can."

"Huh?" Dean asked blankly.

"Just listen for a bit," Sam requested. "Don't interrupt; I don't know if I'll be able to get going again if you do."

"Oooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkk," Dean drew the sounds out to emphasize that Sam was acting weird.

"There are a couple things you have to know about demon blood," Sam began.

"One; it hurts like hell going down," he was grimacing as he said it, and Dean was immediately concerned.

If Sam still thought it hurt after he had _been_ to Hell, then it _really_ hurt.

"Two; it doesn't have to be taken consensually," Sam continued.

More alarm bells went off in Dean's head.

"Three; it's highly addictive, as you already know. Four; it doesn't have to be taken orally," Sam listed off.

Dean's own blood went cold. That pretty much added up to someone drugging _his_ baby brother

That was _not_ ok.

"Five; it not only gets you addicted to the blood itself, but also to the demon who it came from," Sam finished.

Dean took a couple seconds to mull things over.

"So basically, Ruby got you addicted through a needle to _her_ blood, which also means you got addicted to her, which means-" Dean trailed off, waiting for an explanation.

"It was…..hard not to do what she told me to," Sam deliberated. "It wasn't _impossible_, but it was about as easy as getting you to voluntarily give up pie."

"Oh," Dean stated.

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

"Almost everything I said, thought, or did was influenced at least partially by Ruby. It was an absolute _miracle_ that I managed to hold her still so you could stab her. By all rights, I should've been trying to take the knife myself to save her if I had to."

Dean gasped sharply.

"And she also probably told you that you couldn't say anything to me, no?" Dean half asked.

"Of course," Sam agreed. "Can't have Big Brother barging in and killing the demon bitch."

"Was there _anything_ you did that year that was all on your own?" Dean asked after a few minutes.

"Not really," Sam admitted. Then he grinned quite suddenly. "But never let it be said that I was easy to deal with."

"What did you do?" Dean questioned, a smile creeping across his face as Sam got excited.

"I had to do what she told me to, but everything that came out of her mouth was open to interpretation." Sam grin took a sly tint.

"Meaning?" Dean was grinning now too. _That_ was the baby brother he knew.

"Meaning that if she ordered me to get lunch, I had to _get_ the lunch, but I didn't necessarily have to bring it back to her. It might just end up in some ditch, because she never said anything about bringing it back."

Dean roared with laughter.

"So you drove her crazy," he chuckled. "Very good idea."

"I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about it," Sam said, grin dropping a little. "But that didn't mean I couldn't express my feelings on the subject."

"Let me hear," Dean pleaded, expression taking a serious tinge, but a note of fond glee still in his voice.

Sam pulled the Ipod headphones from the port and set the thing playing again.

_Let's get the story straight_

_You were a poison_

_You flooded through my veins_

_You left me broken_

_You tried to make me think_

_That the blame was all on me_

Blame for what, Dean wondered. His death? The demon blood?

_With the pain you put me through_

Emotional _and_ physical, apparently.

Sam hadn't shown any signs of hurt when he was drinking it before, though. Maybe it was because he had gotten used to the agony.

That wasn't a pleasant thought.

_And now I know that it's not me it's you_

_It's not me it's you_

_Always had been you_

_All the lies and stupid things you say and do_

Lies. So many many lies.

Dean wondered how many of those Sam had told inadvertently while he was screaming something else in his head, not allowed to say it.

_It's you_

_It's not me it's you_

_All the lies and pain you put me through_

_I know that it's not me it's you_

_You_

_You_

_It's not me it's _

_you you_

_So here we go again_

_The same fight we're always in_

Yeah, the fight for Sam to get to do what _he_ wanted instead of being forced to obey a demon.

_I don't care so why pretend_

_Wake me up when your lecture ends_

Was Sam actually channeling _him_ there? Dean was pretty sure he was.

Sam was more than likely to sit there and listen just to get some ammo he might be able to use later.

Dean, however, would've started snoring five minutes in.

_You tried to make me small_

Dean almost snorted.

That was impossible. Simply impossible.

Sam was big, and there was no denying it.

_Make me fall and it's all your fault_

_With the pain you put me through_

_And now I know that it's not me it's you_

_It's not me it's you_

_Always has been you_

_All the lies and stupid things you say and do_

_It's you_

_It's not me it's you_

_All the lies and pain you put me through_

_I know that it's not me it's you_

_Let's get the story straight_

_You were a poison_

_Flooding through my veins_

_You're driving me insane_

Dean knew it had to be horrible for his extremely independent brother to suddenly have to do everything on command.

Hell, it would drive _him_ insane! It left him wondering how Sam could last under that kind of pressure for so long.

_And now you're gone away_

_I'm no longer choking_

_From the pain you put me through_

_And now I know that it's not me it's you_

_It's not me it's you_

_Always had been you_

_All the lies and stupid things you say and do_

_It's you_

_It's not me it's you_

_All the lies and pain you put me through_

_I know that it's not me it's you_

_You_

_You_

_you_

_(It's not me it's you)_

This repeated several times until the final

_It's not me it's you!_

They were silent for a few seconds, but it wasn't the awkward silence that normally fell between them

It was companionable and friendly.

"Hey Sammy?" Dean eventually broke the quiet.

"Mmmm?" Sam responded.

"Why can you tell me now, but you couldn't before?"

Sam's grin could've lit up the whole world.

"Loop hole," he explained. "She said _from that moment forward_. This isn't exactly forward now, is it?"

Dean started at him for a second, and then they both collapsed in laughter.

**I'm done.**

**The second I heard that song (It's Not Me it's You by Skillet) I thought of Sam and Ruby and had to write something that would fit in with it.**

**Semester tests this week….ugh. Stressful, y'know? I took my English test today. I haven't gotten back the written part, but I got al 195 points of the multiple point part! **

**I have math tomorrow.**

**People who want Sam/John interaction, you'll really like the next chapter. I'm planning for it to be almost entirely about Sam and John.**

**Thanks to everyone who wished me luck going to school. It really means a lot that you care. **

**Thanks for reading. **


	11. Chapter 11 John

**Disclaimer; I don't own supernatural and never will. **

**This is the chapter of John and Sam bonding. I loved writing this. It was easy for some reason. This also explains oocness for John. **

Chapter 11 John

Sam was sitting on the couch at one in the morning. Not something he particularly enjoyed, but it was better than the nightmare that had driven him out of his bed.

"Sammy?" a voice asked from the doorway.

Sam's head shot up. His dad was leaning against the doorframe, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweatpants.

"Dad," he greeted. "What're you doing up?"

"Could ask you the same thing," John answered with a small smile.

Sam shrugged. "Turns out teddy bears don't make you completely impervious to nightmares," he stated.

John looked amused. "Is that what Dean did yesterday?"

Sam flushed a little. "Yeah."

John moved into the room and ruffled Sam's hair before plunking down next to him on the couch.

"Something's bothering me; do you think you can help?" he questioned cautiously.

Sam was startled. His dad hardly ever cared about his opinion. "Sure," he agreed. "What's up?"

"AJ said earlier that I told Dean to save you or kill you. I wanna know what the hell was going through my head," John told him.

Sam frowned. "He shouldn't have said anything. You were right to tell Dean to do that, though," he answered. "If Dean had killed me when he should've, a lot of bad things wouldn't have happened."

"How can you say that?" John inquired, incredulity mixing with sadness in his voice.

"I broke the world, Dad. If Dean had killed me, so many other people would've lived. I think you must've known something about what was coming," Sam said, letting his head thump back against the couch.

"You act like it's nothing," John observed. "Like you were somehow expecting it."

"I've had awhile to get used to it," Sam reminded him. "You always liked Dean better anyway. I never got overly loving vibes off you."

"What!?" John cried loudly.

"Shh," Sam cautioned. "Don't want to wake everyone else." He paused for a few seconds, contemplating how to answer his dad's question.

"When I was twelve," he started. "You took me on my first hunt. It just so happened that we were hunting a witch."

"Why did I have you hunting a witch for your first hunt?" John interrupted.

Sam shrugged. "I don't know if I was supposed to be there. It might have all been a trick by the witch, but I got a call telling me where to be, and what we were icing."

"Damn," John cursed.

"She was….well, you had killed her sister awhile ago, and she wanted revenge. You took what was most important to her, so she wanted to take what was important to you," Sam explained.

"She wanted you," John surmised.

Sam nodded. "Not precisely _me_, though. Just part of me."

John sucked his breath in.

"She wanted all my good memories of you. And she took them. Every memory I had that included you and made me even remotely happy, she stole."

"She took-" John trailed off, looking vaguely sick.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "Considering the fact that pretty much every memory I had of you made me happy simply because you were in it, it was a pretty bad thing. It took me _years_ to get them all back, and by then it was too late for them to make much of a difference."

"What do you mean?" John questioned.

Sam hesitated a little. "You….you didn't take this information well. You dragged us to Bobby's and did a million and a half counter rituals. When they all failed, you gave up, and part of you broke."

"Broke as in-" John prompted.

"Broke as in, instead of trying to make new good memories, you turned into the absentee father my memories now knew," Sam stated bleakly.

"You weren't….you weren't _Daddy_, anymore. You were the drill sergeant who dropped in every now and then to uproot us, yell at us, or drag us off into the danger of the hunt."

"You stopped listening to me. You stopped trying to keep us in town if I had something I wanted to do. You stopped hugging us. You came home drunk as often as sober."

"Dean and I were just kids. We didn't know what to do," Sam whispered.

He could see that his father hated hearing this. He didn't want to tell the man, but maybe if John knew, he could make sure it wouldn't happen.

"But that doesn't explain why you thought I liked Dean better," John reminded him.

"You just _did_," Sam struggled to find the right words, then gave up. "I was the freak. _Failure_," he breathed, dropping his head back against the couch and closing his eyes.

"No!" John sounded broken. "No, no, no, _no_! How could you-what did I-_God_."

He yanked Sam over to him, and Sam gave a muffled yelp as he found himself being hugged rather tightly.

"Dad?" he asked.

"What did I say to make you think you were a failure?" his dad almost demanded.

Sam shifted uncomfortably; John hadn't let go of him yet.

"Not anything specific. Just….the way you looked at me. Like I'd let you down somehow," he tried to explain.

"It was ok at first, when I didn't remember any different. You wanted the me that knew you back, and I can understand that. You tried to keep me from knowing anything had happened, but I wasn't stupid. I knew what the counter rituals you were using were for."

"After awhile, though, it was different. You didn't want _me_ anymore. Any version of me. You wanted another Dean. Another soldier that would obey without question. But I wasn't Dean."

"No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough. If I managed to complete a particularly difficult training move, it wasn't, 'good job Sam' or even a grunt or look of approval. It, 'finally; took you long enough. Now we can move on at last."

"I was weak, clumsy, slow and _stupid_," Sam recalled.

"How could you think that? How could I _say_ that?" John inquired, hiding his face in Sam's hair.

"It might have been the truth. I don't know. Or, I don't know about the weak, clumsy, and slow. I only had Dean and you to measure against, and I always lost when we spared. But I wasn't stupid, and I knew it. It made me so angry when you called me that."

"I can see why," John agreed. "What the hell kind of father tells their son they're stupid?"

"You did your best. You wanted to make us strong so nothing like the witch could ever happen again," Sam told him.

"I didn't see that, however. So I set out to prove that I wasn't stupid. I got straight, solid A's throughout my whole school career. I thought maybe if I could prove you were wrong about one thing, you might take a second look at all the others."

He laughed quietly, mindful of everyone else still sleeping.

"It was stupid and just gave me more work. When you realized how good I was at research, you insisted that I take over from you sometimes. It was really stressful on top of keeping up my grades in school."

"Then I got snappy and irritable from lack of sleep, and all just got worse. We fought on and off until you added translations to my already overflowing schedule."

"Translations?" John asked, confused.

"Whenever one of your buddies had something they needed translated out of an ancient language, you offered that I could do it. I knew all the languages already, and it wouldn't take as long for me as for people who didn't know them. But they had to be specific, so I had to take time to go over them. It was hard," Sam muttered.

He wondered if his dad was ever going to let go of him. Sam was practically sitting in the man's lap, and he knew John couldn't be comfortable.

Judging by the way John's arms kept tightening around him with each fact he revealed, he was pretty sure that answer was a big fat, "NO!"

"Eventually, I realized I was never going to be good enough if I wasn't perfect," Sam stated. "It was also around this time that I came to understand that to the normal parent, I was _already _perfect."

"Normal?" John questioned.

"Not a hunter. Hunters wanted kids that would grow up to drink and love the hunt as much as they did. Kids like Dean."

"Normal parents wanted kids that would keep their grades up and stay out of trouble. Kids like me," Sam summarized.

"It led to an obsession with being 'normal'. I wanted your approval, and the only way I say myself getting it was for us to be a normal family."

Sam shook his head. "Dean didn't understand. You didn't understand. I never tried to explain. I didn't want to be laughed at."

"It all culminated with Stanford. I wanted to go to college like a _normal_ teenager. So I did."

"But the college fund-" John started.

"Was spent on ammo," Sam finished. "I know."

"No it wasn't. Well, it hasn't been yet," John corrected. "I just stopped depositing in it. It doesn't have enough to send you to college in it."

"I got a full ride," Sam mumbled.

John pulled away, looking excited. "Really!? Wow, Sammy! That's great. Good for you!"

He seemed honestly excited, and Sam was surprised by that fact.

"You weren't happy," he informed his dad. "You were so mad. You thought I was trying to abandon you and Dean."

John's smile slipped away immediately.

"I don't even remember what we screamed, but it was loud and angry and just plain _mean_ on both of our parts. By the time the dust cleared, I was on a bus to Stanford. You said if I went, not to come back. Said I didn't have a family anymore. I believed you."

"I-I can't….I don't…I don't understand," John was crying now in stark contrast to his happiness of seconds earlier. "I don't get _why_-"

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Dean said it was because you wanted to keep me safe and couldn't do that if I was away at school."

"But there wouldn't be anything to keep you safe _from_ at school," John protested.

"Yeah, right up until Jess burned on the ceiling," Sam snorted.

"_What_!?" John gasped.

Sam nodded. "So much fire. It was everywhere. Dean got me out. Otherwise, I would've died right next to her."

"_Sammy_!" John exclaimed.

"I was kind of in shock," Sam defended.

There was silence for a few seconds. John didn't let go of Sam. Sam got the feeling his dad need proof that he was alive.

"It wouldn't have been so bad," he suddenly stated thoughtfully. "If I hadn't gotten my memories of how you were before the curse back."

"What do you mean?" John asked softly.

"Before I got the memories back, I didn't remember being my daddy's baby boy. I didn't remember when I thought you had hung the moon. I never knew you were any different," Sam told him haltingly.

"After I got them back, I knew what I was missing. And I knew it was _my_ fault that you were so broken."

"No," John told him with steel.

"Huh?" Sam questioned, startled.

"It was _never_ your fault. I don't care what happened. I made my own choices, and I take full responsibility for them," John insisted.

"But that's not how I felt," Sam said.

"We're going to start something that will help your self worth and confidence tomorrow," John replied instead of answering. "We can address your tendency to feel guilty for things that weren't your fault then too."

Sam groaned softly. That didn't sound like fun.

"Time to go to sleep," John instructed.

"I don't want to," Sam complained.

John laughed quietly. He shifted backwards, pulling Sam with him.

Sam ended up laying rather awkwardly on his dad's chest.

"Dad?" he asked.

"Go to sleep," John repeated.

Sam yawned tiredly and burrowed into John. He was sure they were both going to regret this in the morning, but he found himself uncaring.

**And that's the end. I like this chapter. I really do. I don't know why.**

**I wanted to say that I would appreciate it if you would sign in before writing a review that's practically a flame. I had someone flame me on one of my one shots, and God help me but I deleted it. **

**If you sign in, I can address your concerns and explain the reasoning behind my writing. If you don't, then I don't get the point of leaving a flame. Are you doing it just to make the writer feel bad? I can't explain if I can't PM you back, and therefore, there's no logical reason to flame. **

**Let it be known that I don't take criticism as flaming. I actually like criticism, because it lets me know what I'm doing wrong. Just, you know, try to be polite about it. And don't review just to rant about how awful you think my writing is. **

**Ok, mini rant over.**

**I also wanted to thank all the people who give good reviews, and to say that I don't mind if you don't sign in as long as you don't flame. I love knowing what everyone thinks. **

**Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. **


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